Troy, New York-October 31, 2000 - STEP Tools, Inc., the forerunner in developing STEP-integration software toolsets for the global marketplace, announced today the United States delegation for SC4 has appointed Dr. Martin Hardwick, President and CEO of STEP Tools, Inc., as the leader of the STEP Implementors Forum. This forum is associated with the Industrial Data Implementors Forum (IDIF), which serves as a virtual- and meeting-based discussion group monitoring the implementability of product data standards. The IDIF (http://impforum.aticorp.org) serves as a body of experts when other committees need information on specific product modeling/description systems. The group maintains relationships with all SC4 technical committees, industry consortia organizations and other standards committees. The forum is centered on the ISO TC184/SC4 product data standards, but most of the current discussions are centered on the implementation of the ISO 10303 (STEP) data standard.
Dr. Hardwick has authored white papers and lectured internationally on topics such as engineering database systems, PDES/STEP and concurrent engineering. He is currently a member of Working Group's 10 and 11, and is the project leader for the EXPRESS X project. Dr. Hardwick was the deputy convenor of Working Group 7 of ISO STEP, the group responsible for the STEP Data Access Interface (SDAI) and other implementation methods of the STEP standard. He has worked on data integration programs including the National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP), the DARPA Initiative in Concurrent Engineering, the ARPA Simulation Based Design Program, the NIST ATP PreAmp program, and other high profile initiatives.