ISO STEP Community Assembles in Poitiers, France for its Concluding 2003 Meeting

STEP Tools, Inc. Joins 200 Independent Product Data Specialists to Promote and Progress STEP and STEP-NC International Standards

Troy, New York -- September 29, 2003 -- STEP Tools, Inc. announced today it will attend the last 2003 gathering of the worldwide ISO STEP community. This international team of more than 200 data structure experts meet three times per year to maintain and advance STEP (Standard for Product Data Exchange) and STEP-NC standards. The meeting will be held in Poitiers, France on October 26 - 31, 2003. STEP Tools spearheads the development of STEP-NC effort in North America, and has been a highly visible participant in the global STEP community for over fifteen years. Dr. Martin Hardwick, president and CEO of STEP Tools, is the international team leader of the STEP Manufacturing group. Dr. David Loffredo, STEP Tools' Vice President of Product Development, is the deputy leader of the working group responsible for STEP Implementation Methods.

Dr. Hardwick will convene with the STEP Manufacturing team and deliberate top implementation issues for STEP-NC, the emerging new standard for product design and manufacturing data. The team will further discuss and define Conformance Classes for STEP-NC, and move forward to conclude open issues that will generate a vote to establish STEP-NC as an official Draft International Standard.

To better integrate the manufacturing process and allow more flexible use of CNC machine tools, STEP Tools has spent the past three years developing a STEP-NC software environment for an intelligent manufacturing system that shares data between product design, process planning and machine tool controllers. By infusing a high level of "intelligence" in machine tool controllers, much of the manufacturing process can be automated and processed within the same database through the use of a full fidelity STEP-NC model. The company has established a STEP-NC Implementer's Program and a line of software implementation products for early adopters of STEP-NC technology.

STEP-NC is anticipated to eliminate 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.

About STEP and STEP-NC Standards 

STEP (STandard for Exchange of Product model data) is a comprehensive ISO standard for CAD design data. STEP-NC, the manufacturing extension of this standard, annotates the design information with manufacturing data. STEP became a full ISO standard in 1994, and since then, all of the leading CAD software vendors have implemented STEP data translation. It is estimated that more than one and a half million CAD stations now contain STEP data translators. STEP-NC is on its way to becoming a Draft International Standard in 2004.

About STEP Tools, Inc. 

STEP Tools, Inc. is a leading international supplier of professional STEP software toolsets (based on ISO standards) for application software developers, design firms and manufacturing companies in diverse industries. The STEP Tools product line is used by the world's foremost firms to leverage STEP and STEP-NC technology to facilitate the sharing of engineering product information. Over one million end users utilize product data applications built with ST-Developer, the company's flagship product. The company offers a suite of software solutions in several languages that integrate with existing tools and database systems, and also provide cross-platform compatibility and ease-of-use for streamlined development. The emerging STEP-NC technology is yielding process improvements including a 35% reduction in path planning time, a 75% reduction in paper drawings generated for the shop-floor, and a 50% improvement in machining time for small to mid-sized job lots. 

www.steptools.com

 

Sponsored Links

AnyDWG Offers DWG to PDF, DWG to DXF, PDF to DWG, DWG to JPG, PDF to DXF Converters

AutoDWG offers DWF to DWG, DWG to PDF , PDF to DWG, DWG to Flash Converters, DWG Viewer.

eCampus.com Get your stuff for College... Cheap! Textbooks, Greek Gear, DVD's, University Clothing, Computers and MORE!

Access Your PC from Anywhere Free Trial plus 10% Off!