Troy, New York - November 19, 2002 - STEP Tools, Inc. , the forerunner in developing STEP and STEP-NC software solutions for the global marketplace, announced today it is amongst the first ten adopters of Dassault Systèmes' Component Application Architecture (CAA) V5 development platform. STEP Tools is involved in a number of high level development projects in shipbuilding, aerospace, manufacturing (STEP-NC) that integrate design and manufacturing product data. STEP Tools plans to create STEP-CATIA data translators in CAA V5 for these programs. This development work will also dovetail into STEP-NC initiatives with key U.S. and European manufacturers in the early process of incorporating STEP-NC technology into their manufacturing operations. STEP (Standard for Product Data Exchange) is a comprehensive standard for CAD design data. STEP-NC, the manufacturing extension of this standard, annotates this design information with manufacturing data.
Spatial Corporation, a Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq:DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) company, is the primary channel for sales, marketing and support of CAA V5 to software developers. Mike Payne, CEO of Spatial, said "Spatial welcomes STEP Tools as a CAA V5 Adopter and looks forward to working with them to ensure their success. As one of the first ten to become a CAA V5 Adopter, STEP Tools is among the vanguard of companies aiding in the proliferation and acceptance of CAA V5."
Dr. Martin Hardwick, president and CEO of STEP Tools, is the STEP Manufacturing leader in the international STEP community of over 200 independent product data specialists. He states, "Many tier one manufacturers are veteran users of CATIA software and STEP applications. We see many short and long term benefits as a CAA Adopter, especially in shipbuilding applications and STEP-NC manufacturing applications."