STEP Tools News for Thursday November 13

[Martin Hardwick]

This newsletter is a brief update of what is going on in STEP and at 
STEP Tools, Inc. If you want to know more, try the STEP Tools web site 
at http://www.steptools.com


------------------ 
STEP-NC WG at OMAC

The early users of STEP-NC will begin production testing on the 
STEP-NC model for milling next year to verify the projected savings 
with production parts. These savings are projected to be:

* A 75% reduction in the number of drawings for the shop-floor. 
* A 35% reduction in set-up time for new jobs. 
* A 50% decrease in machining time for small to mid-sized job lots.

For an enterprise that currently spends 30 months preparing a product for 
production these savings can add up to a reduction to 18 months.

The goal of the OMAC meeting is to begin inter-operability testing. 
For large enterprises to design anywhere and build anywhere, then 
their design, planning and manufacturing systems must inter-operate 
which implies that the AP-203/AP-224 interface between design and 
planning, and the AP-238 interface between planning and manufacturing 
must be robust.

The AP-203 interface has been well tested in the CAX/IF forums. The 
purpose of the OMAC meeting is to start discussion on testing the 
AP-238 interface using the data produced by the early production 
projects. The meeting will be held at the upcoming in Orlando Florida 
from 5PM to 7:30PM on Tuesday February 12.

http://www.arcweb.com/omac


---------------- 
New Data in 2002

Next year will see a big increase in the range of data available in 
STEP. The first STEP Application Protocols were for general purpose 
engineering data as defined by AP-203 and AP-214. Now, thanks to the 
efforts of many experts, product-specific STEP data will become widely 
available for the following domains:

* Pipes, Pipe assemblies and Pipe systems (using AP-227) 
* Printed Circuit Boards and Assemblies (using AP-210) 
* Ship Moulded Forms (using AP-216) 
* Ship Steel Structures (using AP-218)

The underlying standards for this new data were finished over two 
years ago, which means there has now been enough time for the early 
implementors to complete and test their translators. New data streams 
will become available and organizations that use the data should think 
about writing applications to take advantage using ST-Developer and 
ST-XML.


------------------- 
Translation Service 

The Translation Service has now been used more than 15,000 times!

Period Covered: Sun Dec 2 03:25:03 2001 -- Sun Dec 9 03:25:03 2001 
Total usage: 54 
Successful usage: 54 (100%) 
Errors: (0%) 
Translator total errors success rate 
ACIS to STEP: 12 0 100% 
STEP to ACIS: 29 0 100% 
AP203 Checker: 8 0 100% 
CEB XML Writer: 2 0 100% 
OSEB XML Writer: 2 0 100% 
Parasolid to STEP: 1 0 100% 

======================================= 
All-Time stats 
------------------------------------ 
Summary: 

Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Dec 9 03:25:53 2001 
Total usage: 15030 
Successful usage: 13646 (90%) 
Errors: 1384 (9%) 
Translator total errors success rate 
ACIS to STEP: 3466 78 97% 
STEP to ACIS: 4592 267 94% 
STEP to XML: 87 18 79% 
AP203 Checker: 1178 50 95% 
CEB XML Writer: 71 4 94% 
EXPRESS Checker: 11 1 90% 
OSEB XML Writer: 53 0 100% 
Parasolid to STEP: 799 131 83% 
STEP to Parasolid: 747 197 73% 
STEP to XML: 483 36 92% 
Visualization tools: 709 178 74% 
Visualization Service: 231 26 88%XML to STEP: 106 21 80% 


--------------------------- 
Tools From STEP Tools, Inc. 

The world's foremost firms use the STEP Tools product line to help 
them share engineering product information. Over one million people 
use product data applications built with ST-Developer, the company's 
flagship product.

Data Management Tools: 
* ST-Repository -- STEP database with services for sharing CAD, 
PDM and NC information across the supply chain.

Programming Tools: 
* ST-Developer -- programming tools for writing STEP applications, 
translators and databases. 
* ST-XML -- programming functions to convert STEP data to STEP XML and 
business object data. 
* ST-ACIS Library -- programming functions to convert STEP data to and 
from ACIS models and SAT files. 
* ST-Parasolid Library -- programming functions to convert STEP data 
to and from Parasolid models. 

Desktop Tools: 
* ST-ACIS Translator -- desktop tool for translating STEP data to ACIS 
and vice versa. 
* ST-Parasolid Translator -- desktop tool for translating STEP data to 
Parasolid and vice versa. 
* ST-Viewer -- desktop tool to view, analyze and dimension STEP data. 

Consulting Tools: 
* ST-Consulting -- consulting services to assist in the development of 
CAD, PDM and NC applications, translators, viewers, checkers and 
databases. 
* ST-Training training courses designed to get decision makers up to speed 
on the business benefits of STEP, and programmers up to speed on STEP 
applications and products.


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