STEP standard takes off

Manufacturing Engineering, Oct 2002

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DEALS, OPENINGS, ACQUISITIONS, PARTNERSHIPS, ORDERS, EXPANSIONS, AWARDS

SOFTWARE

Martin Hardwick is president and CEO of STEP Tools Inc. (Troy, NY), a supplier of STEP-based software tools.

PASSWORD

Martin Hardwick President and CEO STEP Tools Inc. (Troy, NY),

"As far as we can tell, STEP-NC can make anything."

Manufacturing Engineering: What is the STEP standard?

Hardwick: STEP is a huge initiative that started around 1983 with people searching for ways to share engineering information seamlessly, between companies. Around 1995, they established the first useful specification, which is called AP 203. It's an application protocol that's used for exchanging design data between CAD systems and between a CAD and a CAM system, and its big innovation is it allows you to move the actual 3-D nominal geometry between those systems.

ME: What can STEP do for manufacturers?

Hardwick: Because it can move that nominal model geometry between different CAD systems, people are moving beyond the 2-D model and into manipulating 3-D models. You tend to find even the smallest job shop has a CAD system that can read 3-D geometry, which can come from anywhere using STEP. And because they spent so much time on the architecture of STEP when they were first building it, from 1983 to about 1990, it's fully extensible. We're moving into many more things, like STEP-NC, and it's going to be moving around tolerance and manufacturing feature information in electronic format.

ME: What is STEP-NC, as opposed to STEP Tools' products?

Hardwick: We offer products for STEP-NC to complement or work with STEP-NC, but STEP-NC is an ISO standard. Within the STEP framework, it's called AP 238 and it is an interface between CAD/CAM and CNC systems, so that in the long term, controllers will read STEP-NC data and compile that data, and then begin to machine the part, if everything is correct for the capabilities of this particular machine.

ME: Does STEP-NC presently allow most CAD-CAM systems to read such data?

Hardwick: No, because it's relatively new. You're going to have to go to special places like STEP Tools to get your STEP-NC capability today. In another two years, it'll start becoming more widely available. STEP Tools offers the interface now, and people can visit our Web site at www.stepnc.com to get a downloadable plug-in that will plug into Mastercam or GibbsCAM, and in the future, to DP Technology's Esprit CAM software, that will allow you to read AP 238 data. In the long term, users may buy it from STEP Tools, and they may buy it from Mastercam or other vendors. Right now, it is available from our Web site for evaluation at no cost.

ME: What are some of the main hurdles for manufacturers using STEP?

Hardwick: Let's first talk briefly about what's in STEP-NC. STEP-NC is the same 3-D models as STEP for Design-AP 203 or AP 214. But on top of that, there are manufacturing features: pockets, slots, holes, removing volumes of surfaces, steps, all those kinds of things. Then there are electronic tolerances and surface-finish requirements. And there's also what's called a Working Step, or a manufacturing work plan consisting of working steps that allow you to say `OK, first I want to rough this pocket, then I'll finish this pocket, then I'll go off and drill this hole. Then I'll drill these five holes and cut out this step.'

ME: So there is a lot of functionality right now in STEP-NC?

Hardwick: Right. As far as we can tell, STEP-NC can make anything. It's a question of the software systems catching up and the processes getting in place, so that you can write STEP-NC data out of your CAD system, and then read it into a CAM system for doing manufacturing planning, or read it into a CNC system that makes the part. One hurdle: a key feature about STEPNC is that it's feature-driven, so the designers or the CAM people must become more feature-oriented. They must think about identifying the pockets and the slots, and identifying a strategy for making them.

ME: What will STEP offer manufacturing in the future?

Hardwick: A few years from now, I'm fairly confident that all the CNC controls will become available with STEP-NC options or STEP-NC compilers. If you have to do a last-minute switch with a machine, the STEP-NC compiler will look at the machine configuration, check to make sure everything is realistic, compile it, and give you an estimate of how long it will take to make the part. If you agree that this was a good thing to do, you just go ahead and do it, almost automatically. When we get there, five-axis machines will be used more often, which means that for the small and mid-sized job lots, machining will be 50% faster. Today, a typical CAM or CNC operator doesn't particularly like using these five-axis, high-speed machines, because any mistake is pretty nasty. With these new tools doing all the software checking, it becomes a much safer process, and therefore the machines will be used more often.

Milestones

Solidworks (Concord, MA) has sold its 200,000th license of the SolidWorks 3-D CAD modeling software, which it started shipping in 1995, to battery and lighting giant Rayovac Corp. (Madison, WI). Rayovac, one of many manufacturers to standardize on SolidWorks software, uses SolidWorks to design everything from batteries and lighting products-including flashlights-to packaging for its consumer products and the equipment that manufactures those products. Rayovac uses SolidWorks' COSMOS/Works to analyze the structural integrity of its designs and PDM/Works to manage the design data it generates.