[step-manufacturing] Minutes of the NIST meeting June 16-18

Tue Jun 22 16:34:08 EDT 2010

_Attendees_
Martin Hardwick, STEP Tools, USA
David Loffredo, STEP Tools, USA
Fred Proctor, NIST, USA
Fiona Zhao, NIST,/New Zealand
David Odendahl, Boeing, USA
Bengt Olsson, Sandvik, Sweden
Larry Maggiano, Mitutoyo, USA
Leon Xu, Boeing, USA
Mikael Hedlind, KTH, Sweden
Chris Pfeifer CCAT, USA
Anna Valente, ITIA-CNR, Italy
Sid Venkatesh, Boeing, USA
Magnus Lundgren, KTH, Sweden
Simon Frechette, NIST, USA
John Horst NIST, USA
Rich Morihara, Boeing, USA
Paul Huang, Army, USA
Charles Stirk, PDES, Inc.
B E Lee, NIST/Postech, Korea
Joao Carlos E. Ferreira, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina,  Brazil
Alberto J. Álvares, Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil
John Michaloski, NIST, USA
Mike McGlauflin, NIST, USA
Rob Garwood, Sandvik Coromant, USA
Joe Fritz, STEP Tools Inc., USA
Matthew Byrne, University of Michigan/Boeing, USA
Shawn Moylan, NIST, USA
Rob Ivester, NIST, USA
Al Jones, NIST, USA
Jeff Haller, Veritas CNC, USA
Eric Whitenton, NIST, USA

_Telephone Attendees_
Vincent Marchini, Ameritech, USA
Per-Arne Carlsson, Volvo, Sweden

_Apologies for Absence_
Aydin Nassehi, U.Bath, UK
Stephen Newman, U.Bath, UK
Alain Brail, AlBavis,  France
Thomas Breunung, Walter AG, Germany
Anglea Albus, TDM Systems, Germany
Bob Erickson, Pratt & Whitney, USA

The Boxy part was machined in Steel by NIST and they were able to show 
predicted tool wear for the pocketing operations.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Boxy.mov
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/STEP_Tool_Life_NIST.ppt

The following were agreed to be the successes of this round.

1. We were able to use the setup placements defined by STEP-NC to allow 
the operator to use the same coordinates for each setup by normalizing 
the coordinates of each setup to match the fixturing.
2. We were able to use the workplan/workingstep structure of a STEP-NC 
program to rapidly and intelligently optimize the feeds and speeds of a 
program to meet the requirements of the tool and the machining schedule.

Magnus Lundgren of KTH gave a demonstration and discussion of how the 
Boxy data was built using Mastercam. Martin Hardwick gave a 
demonstration of how a STEP-NC data set was prepared for machining using 
the STEP-NC Explorer.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Boxy_MasterCAM_and_ST-Explorer_Tutorial.pdf
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/STEPNC_Explorer_and_Boxy.ppt

There was considerable discussion of how to make STEP-NC data more 
portable and interoperable. There was general agreement that helping the 
operator to understand the "real" tool requirements was a key issue. The 
STEP-NC program contains a precise description of the tool that "worked" 
for the operator that designed the program, but does not contain any 
data to indicate which attributes of the tool are required for 
successful machining and which attributes can be varied without 
consequences. Fred Proctor of NIST agreed to develop an information 
model for documenting the requirements so that they can be used to 
control tool selection in future applications. We agreed that the 
requirements should match ISO 13399 properties so that the tool 
selection can be performed automatically, and that the simple display of 
the advice was equally important so that an operator can be given help 
when deciding what tools to order before machining a new part.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/toolreqs-v4.txt
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Katrineholm_Feautures_and_Flow_simulation_100602.pdf
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/physical_cutting_tools-made_simple.ppt
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Endmill_examples.pdf
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/MILLING_TOOL_PARAMETERS_DOCUMENTATION.DOC

We further discussed developing a schema to return tool advice from the 
tool vendor when a tool has been selected. This advice should include 
the attributes required to determine chip load and expected tool wear so 
that the enterprise can plan how to use the tool and optimize the 
STEP-NC program appropriately.

We discussed Mil Standard 31000. This standard is used to determine the 
technical data that a contractor must deliver to the DoD when building a 
system and is in the process of being updated. Consideration is being 
given to requiring the contractors to deliver information about the 
manufacturing processes used to create the system. STEP-NC AP-238 is 
standard that can be used to describe such information and the Army is 
interested in evaluating its suitability for Mil Standard 31000.

We discussed traceability and process monitoring. A STEP-NC program can 
add value to process results by describing the operation, feature and 
cutting tool being used to machine a part when an event happens during 
machining. We agreed that there are three kinds of information that we 
would like to correlate against a STEP-NC program. Discrete events such 
as an operator change or a fire alarm. Continuous events that correspond 
to the progress of the STEP-NC program and continuous events that do not 
correspond. The former follow the same encoding as the STEP-NC data so 
that if measurement values have been captured at the start and end of a 
tool path, then a value can be computed for the middle of the path. The 
latter are not correlated because they vary at random during the 
machining and include properties such as sound and machine vibrations 
but an analyst would still like to know what was happening to the sensor 
during the machining of that path.

Several users would like to be able to capture process results in the 
context of STEP-NC programs using OPC calls or MT Connect. We developed 
a schema that will allow these results to be added to a STEP-NC data set 
so that web applications can use the Modular Foundry Language API and 
STEP Resource Locatiors (STRL's) to extract information about the 
process and correlate it with information about the product and process 
being machined.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Traceability.txt

We discussed the requirements for closed loop machining. After much 
discussion, a schema was outlined that will allow points and axes in the 
STEP-NC program to be modified using the difference between the 
as-designed and as built geometry of a part or assembly. Martin Hardwick 
and Fiona Zhao will refine this scheme and propose a revised information 
model at a future meeting.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/STEP_closed_loop.ppt
ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/dm_feature_harmonization.doc

We discussed tolerance tracking. The Boxy part contains many workpieces 
showing the state of the part before and after each machining step. Many 
of these parts are toleranced and users and applications would like to 
be able to track the evolution of the tolerances at each stage of the 
machining. Two solutions were discussed. The first solution allows a 
tolerance to be modeled on multiple workpieces. This solution will 
require changes to the STEP resources and it will be challenging to 
implement. A second solution modifies the ARM of AP-238 to allow for the 
tracking of tolerances, datums and surface finish requirements between 
workpieces. This solution can be implemented by a combination of 
intelligent software on or off the CNC control and user interfaces.

We discussed operator notes. STEP-NC AP-238 allows designers to mark up 
a part using the presentation information enabled by AP-203 e2 and 
AP-214 e3, and it allows a list of operator instructions to be defined 
for each setup. However, it does not let an operator create messages 
with useful information for other operators such as note to be sure to 
clean of the chips at the end of this operation. These messages need to 
be placed in context where other operators can see them and they need to 
be associated with an operation so that they are not all displayed at once.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Other_new_models.txt

We reviewed the AP-214 Machine Tool Model.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Manufacturing_resource_modelling_2010-06-17.pdf

We reviewed the Technical Corrigendum for AP-238 edition 1 and discussed 
the options for creating an Edition 2.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/stepnc_e2_20100618.ppt

We discussed the date, location and content of the next demonstration. 
Ideas included machining Boxy, or a new part, at an Army location in 
late October or early November, and machining a new mill turn part in 
Sweden in March or June. The users would like to show CAM to CAM data 
exchange, process monitoring, tolerance tracking, automated tool 
selection and closed loop machining.

An archive has been made of all the material submitted and you are 
encouraged to visit to get more information on all these topics.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/

Pictures can be found in the following subdirectory.

ftp://ftp.steptools.com/private/NIST/Presentations/Pictures/

Respectfully submitted

Martin Hardwick
Team Leader STEP-Manufacturing
President STEP Tools, Inc.
Professor and Acting Head of Computer Science, RPI

Action Items
----------------
Fred Proctor to develop Tool Requirements Model
US Army to determine if Rock Island, Picatinny or Watervliet Arsenal can 
be the location of the next machining demonstration
Martin Hardwick and Fiona Zhao to develop a next iteration of the closed 
loop machining model
John Michaloski and STEP Tools to develop process monitoring model and 
interfaces
KTH and Sandvik to consider requirements for a Mill Turn demonstration.
Boeing, STEP Tools and Sandvik to consider requirements for an automated 
tool selection demonstration.
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