[step-manufacturing] Minutes of first telcon for NIST round of testing

[Martin Hardwick]

Attendees
---------------
Martin Hardwick, STEP Tools
David Loffredo, STEP Tools
Magnus Lundgren, KTH
Bengt Olsson, Sandvik
Fred Proctor, NIST
Alain Brail, AlBavis
Mikael Hedlind, KTH
Sid Venkatesh, Boeing


Apologies for Absence
--------------------------------
Chris Pfeifer CCAT
Brian Kindilein, CCAT
Leon Xu, Boeing
David Odendahl, Boeing
Anna Valente, ITIA-CNR, Italy

The next round of demonstrations will be held at NIST on June 16 and 17.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/New_STEPNC_Cycle8.pdf
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/New_STEPNC_Cycle8.ppt

We reviewed the technology goals. T24 wants to develop machine tools 
that are compatible with AP-214 by developing a Usage Guide similar 
to the one developed for Gears in Germany. KTH and U.Bath are taking 
the lead in developing this model.

The concept of dividing a STEP-NC plan into linked modules was 
reviewed. TRL is not a good name because it means Technology 
Readiness Level in the DoD. In general nearly every three letter 
acronym has been taken so the current suggestion is to call the links 
STRL's for STEP Resource Locators. The STRL's consist of a URL 
address, an action and a query. The query defines a subset of a 
STEP-NC project that is to be viewed, copied, planned, machined, 
measured, optimized or simulated.

The action describes how the data is to be used and a STRL is a way 
for users to e-mail these commands to each other. For example one 
user could ask another user to look at a potential error in a project 
at a location defined by an STRL, or a contractor could ask a 
supplier to rough machine a part using a program identified by a 
STRL, or a group of suppliers can link their systems to make a 
distributed simulation.

Several scenarios for demonstrating the STRL's were discussed. They 
include rapid prototyping by linking a new program onto an existing 
program, concurrent engineering by linking the machining of multiple 
parts in an assembly, distributed simulation by linking programs to 
rough and finish a part, interoperability between linking process 
plans for horizontal and vertical machines, cutting tool database 
optimization by linking a ISO 13399 database to a toolpath generator, 
and feed speed optimization by linking STEP-NC to MT Connect.

We agreed to divided the scenario's between owners as listed in the 
action items. Additional scenarios are welcome including CMM and 
energy modeling scenarios.

A recording of this conference call is at:
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/stepmanuf_telecon_20091007.wmv

The next conference call will be held at the regular times on 
Wednesday October 21.

Action items
------------------
Boeing to develop the rapid prototyping scenario
KTH to develop the concurrent engineering scenario
CCAT to develop the interoperability scenario
Airbus to develop the distributed simulation scenario
Sandvik to develop the cutting tool database scenario
NIST to develop the MT Connect scenario