Product data specialists from around the world meet to advance the STEP International Standard
Troy, New York - June 17, 2003 - STEP Tools, Inc. announced today it will attend the ISO STEP meeting being held in Stuttgart, Germany, the capitol of the German automotive industry, on June 22-26, 2003. Dr. Martin Hardwick, president and CEO of STEP Tools, and Dr. David Lofreddo, Vice President of Product Development, will join the international team of more than 200 data structure experts who meet three times per year to maintain and advance the STEP (Standard for Product Data Exchange) standard. STEP Tools spearheads the development of STEP-NC effort in North America, and is a highly visible participant in the global STEP community. Dr. Martin Hardwick is the international team leader of the STEP Manufacturing group. Dr. Loffredo is the deputy leader of the working group responsible for STEP Implementation Methods.
Dr. Hardwick will convene with the STEP Manufacturing team that is comprised of highly technical industry professionals who deliberate top implementation issues for manufacturing. He will talk about the new STEP Index Library and its relationship to STEP-NC and the emerging Manufacturing grid. This is a C++/COM library of useful functions for creating and modifying applications using STEP-NC (AP-238) machining data. This software solution was created by STEP Tools to simplify and expedite AP-238 programming, lower the learning curve for newcomers, and saving time for STEP experts.
Dr. Hardwick will also discuss the new software version of STEP-XML binding (Part 28) and explain how it produces XML that is more similar to ebXML. Other topics include discussion about the German model for Production facilities, as well as the progress of getting CAD software vendors to write GD&T data for STEP and STEP-NC. Dr. Hardwick will also cover the results of its STEP-NC technology meeting cohosted with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) at their headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD. Members of the STEP-NC Industrial Review Board and attendees from major U.S. manufacturers, machine tool companies, and software developers observed a series of "firsts" in the progression of STEP-NC demonstrated at NIST's Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL).
STEP-NC technology is expected to eliminate some of the most troublesome bottlenecks to manufacturing productivity - cumbersome post processors, antiquated G & M codes, data redundancies, multiple CAD files, and more. The international standard is expected to usher in a new era of manufacturing automation in terms of productivity, safety, reliability, and CNC machine tool usability and interoperability.