[step-manufacturing] Minutes of conference call for step-manufacturing demonstrations on July 4 and 6

[Martin Hardwick]

Minutes of Conference Call on Thursday April 12 at 1PM France, 8PM 
Japan and 7AM Eastern USA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The logistics for the demonstration were reviewed. There is some 
concern about the suitability of July 6th as the date for the Tokyo 
demonstration because of the overlap with the last day of the STEP 
meeting. There is also some concern about whether both demonstrations 
can be presented in 90 minutes. Both issues were tabled until more 
has been decided about the logistics of the demonstration by the 
Japanese delegation.

There was a discussion of the Mold and Die demonstration part. This 
is a 2.5 Axis part that requires three set-ups. The attendees felt 
confident that AP-224 files for this part could be produced by May 
1st and AP-240 by May 15th. When the AP-224 is available Sandvik will 
give tool recommendations with speeds and feeds. In the first 
instance these recommendations will be given as a text file.

All data including the AP-224 files, the AP-240 and the tooling 
recommendations should be posted to the STEP Tools ftp site as soon 
as it is available by sending e-mail to hardwick at steptools.com.

There was some discussion about the possibility of Fanuc 
participating in the demonstration by contributing its prototype ISO 
14649 controller. STEP Tools offered to convert the AP-238 data that 
it plans to export from Mastercam to ISO 14649 if Fanuc can 
participate. The Japanese delegation will check to see if Fanuc can 
participate.

The 5-axis probing demonstration for the Fish Head part was 
discussed. Airbus confirmed that the three features shown in the 
Funchal slides should be measured. NIST confirmed that it plans to 
machine this part and to be a test site for the measurement program. 
The Japan demonstration for this part will have to occur at a site 
more than 60 minutes away from Tokyo so it cannot be a live 
demonstration, but a video may be made. There was a discussion on the 
possibility of the part also being made in Europe in Sweden or 
France. There was also discussion on whether the probing should be 
done at one site or all three sites. The preference was for the 
probing to be done at all three sites to allow for a comparison of 
the three different sets of results.

Action Items:
SCRA and MER to post AP-224 data for the mold and die part to be 
posted to web site by May 1
NIST to confirm that it can machine the fish head part on its DMG 
machine by May 1
Sandvik and MER to determine availability of a machine in Europe for 
the fish head part by May 1
Japan delegation to determine more about the logistics and 
organization for the next conference call on Thursday, April 26

Attendees:
Chiaki Sakamoto, MER Japan,
Bengt Olsson, Sandvik, Sweden
Alain Brail, Airbus, France
Fred Proctor, NIST, USA
Bill Freeman, SCRA, USA
Martin Hardwick, STEP Tools, USA

The next conference call will be hosted by Airbus on Thursday April 
26 at 1PM France, 8PM Japan, 7AM Eastern USA, 4AM Western USA