[step-manufacturing] Minutes of August 14 conference call

[Martin Hardwick]

Attendees
--------------
Martin Hardwick, STEP Tools, USA
David Loffredo, STEP Tools, USA
Mikael Hedlind, Scania, Sweden
Mike Restal, Sandvik, USA
Kevin Warren, Sandvik, USA
Vincent Marchini, Ameritech, USA
Fred Proctor, NIST, USA
Sid Venkatesh, Boeing, USA
David Odendahl, Boeing, USA
Leon Xu, Boeing, USA
Robert Erickson, Pratt and Whitney, USA
Thomas Raun, ISCAR, USA
Doron Cohen, ISCAR, Isreal
Ian Stroud, EPFL, Switzerland
Alain Brail, Airbus (retired), France
Yin Lampard Zhang, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Due to circumstances beyond our control (an extremely busy summer at 
STEP Tools and Boeing), the schedule for the CAM Tooling pilot has 
slipped. The first test part will now be delivered to the cutting tool 
vendors for evaluation on September 16th. Apologies to all for this 
delay. A new schedule is being published and will be shared with the 
participants.

We discussed AP238 Edition 2. There was agreement that work should start 
now that the Draft International Standard for AP242 is being balloted.

The discussion resolved into 5 content opportunities and 3 structural 
issues.

For the content we agreed on the following:
-------------------------------------------------------------
1. Add the functionality enhancements computed during the AP238 Edition 
1 testing. These include the cross section data for tool wear and 
dynamic feed speed control, the via points for high speed milling, the 
reference direction for tape laying, the workpieces for volume removal 
and the selection flag for executables.
ftp://www.steptools.com/private/AP238e2/ap238_e2_20100618.ppt
ftp://www.steptools.com/private/AP238e2/STEP_NC_operation_complement.pdf

2. Harmonize with AP242. Update the representation for tolerances to use 
the new AP242 method for connecting faces, consider adopting the same 
method for the feature faces, add the new presentation and kinematic 
information.
For a demonstration see http://www.steptools.com/demos/nc-frames.html?moldy/

3. Fully integrate with ISO 13399 so that the tool properties can be 
associated with the tool geometry.
For a partial demonstration (tool geometry, presentation and assembly 
data but not the properties) see: 
http://www.steptools.com/demos/asm-frames.html?cutter.xml

4. Integrate the key machine tool attributes of ASME B5.59 with the 
kinematics of AP242 so that machining programs can be automatically 
associated with workpieces, cutting tools and fixtures in a drag and 
drop paradigm.
For a demonstration of the power of the drag and drop paradigm see: 
www.Step3d.com <http://www.Step3d.com>

5. Harmonize with ISO 14649 Edition 2. There are new processes, tools 
and operations to consider.

The discussion on the structure was more open ended:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Business Object Models and Part 21 Edition 3. A growing number of web 
sites are able to support the display and manipulation of STEP data. 
With the appropriate semantics we should be able to enable these sites 
to share a process defined at one site with the cutting tools defined at 
another site, on a workpiece defined at yet another site, with a machine 
tool defined in the shop of the first site.
ftp://www.steptools.com/private/AP238e2/P21e3_one_slide.pptx

7. Make the model more extensible so that end users can add new types of 
tools, operations and features. The number of operations defined for 
STEP-NC is increasing with ISO 14649 Edition 2 and will grow in the 
future. A methodology that allows new operations to be defined without 
requiring a new edition of the standard will allow more applications to 
be satisfied more quickly. If we use the Gears methodology then the new 
operations can be added without impacting existing systems and 
translators. Applications that understand the new operations will be 
able to process the data efficiently using the third level semantics 
while regular applications will be able to process the data on the 
second level understood by all systems.

8. Adopt the most efficient method for documenting the new standard. The 
efficiency should respect the requirements of both the standards writer 
and the standards implementor. Modularity can make the job of the 
standards writer much easier at the expense of confusing the standards 
implementor with an endless series of hyper links that never seem to 
reach closure. For the standards implementor the HTML in AP214 is the 
easiest to follow, and the standalone PDF documentation used for AP238 
Edition 1 and other AP's is also good. However, AP238 Edition 2 will 
build significantly on AP242 so some kind of integration may be very 
helpful for the standards writer.

Many apologies for not making a recording of this conference call. The 
next conference call will be held at the regular times on Wednesday 
August 28th.

Action Items
-----------------
Martin Hardwick to make an updated schedule for the CAM Tooling pilot

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.steptools.com/pipermail/step-manufacturing/attachments/20130816/b4befeb8/attachment.html>