Gunilla Sivard

Cutting Tool Data Representation and Implementation Based on STEP AP242

For cutting tool data exchange in manufacturing CAx (Computer-Aided technologies), standardized representation and classification of items and properties is important. ISO 13399 (Cutting tool data representation and exchange) provides a solution to represent cutting tool data classified with an ISO 13584 (Parts Library, PLib) based dictionary. However, ISO 13399 does not support classification of shape geometry directly, which limits its use. Another limitation is representing GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) as simplified general properties, which does not fulfill high semantic precision and validation rules. This research provides a unified solution to represent cutting tool parameters integrated with geometry and dedicated properties based on STEP AP242 (ISO 10303-242 Managed model-based 3D engineering). Standardized libraries such as the ISO 13399 dictionary can be reused with the modeling approach for AP242 cutting tool representation. Software is developed to validate and demonstrate how this solution facilitates the data integration process to support CAx applications.

System integration for kinematic data exchange

Industry needs a system neutral solution for exchange of kinematic models. In this article, the first known valid implementation of kinematic mechanisms based on ISO 10303 Standard for the Exchange of Product (STEP) is presented. The result includes an implementation framework and two developed prototypes. Two major challenges of standard-based development are identified and generalised: data integration and system integration, which are solved by the framework. The two prototypes are implemented to establish kinematic data exchange between Siemens NX® and STEP-NC MachineTM via STEP AP214 files. Experiences of design and development of the applications are presented, and a validated case study of data exchange using the developed applications is shown. There are other attempts of using STEP as basis for modelling, but as the first valid STEP implementation on kinematics, this approach demonstrates the feasibility of pure STEP-based data exchange for kinematic mechanisms. The prototypes also show potential of utilising the framework for general standard implementations. The research is expected to motivate deeper understanding and extensive applications of the STEP standard in industry and academia.

An Approach for Manufacturing Process Representation in Product Lifecycle Management

Current PLM systems have concentrated on product design, not on manufacturing engineering with its development of e.g. Material flows and layouts. This paper proposes an approach to describe how to represent the main required manufacturing process data using ontologies together with generic data standards. This approach makes it possible to develop translations between different software, and also providing users with the meaning of different concepts. It contributes to an efficient management of manufacturing information, with a focus on the material flow information as used in Discrete Event Simulation - DES.

Rapid Production Changes through the Coordination of Factory Layout Models and Activities

Changing the design of a factory in practice involves the change of a number of parallel and interdependent systems such as the machining resources and robot cells, the supply systems for electricity, water, air, heat and cooling, pneumatics and hydraulics, the systems for chip and waste handling, process fluid, communication networks, sprinkler systems, as well as the building construction. Thus the coordination of information and models, as well as of the design work activities, is of utmost importance to achieve a fast and flexible development process. This paper presents the results from a research project focusing on computer aided work processes and the communication of models between various stake holders in layout design. The primary objective was to provide methods for a coordinated factory development process with a facilitated information exchange and reuse of knowledge and models. Results concerning required layout and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) functionalities, as well as modelling and communication principles, tested in an industrial case, are presented.

Production pilot for co-operation in factory development

This paper is dedicated to the factory development where management of established knowledge and company practice is a big challenge because its process involves many competence domains such as process planning, production investment and building construction, etc. This article presents an in-house developed production pilot for a better cooperation and support in factory development. Details about methodologies and the thinking behind the pilot will be presented in the paper. The pilot aims to ease the sharing and reuse of knowledge and experiences, create a valueadding working process, and ease the collaboration and semantic interpretation between disciplines within factory development.

Material flow data representation and integration based on STEP

A fundamental requirement for executing Discrete Event Simulation (DES) is incorporating a data structure that represents process, product and resource information, their interrelations. Further, the capability of integrating this data structure with other types of information such as geometry, e.g. for sizes of products or distances of transports, is of vital interest. Manufacturing information is normally not integrated but is heterogeneous and stored in different Computer Aided Design (CAD), and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications in the factory plant. Therefore it is important to create an information sharing repository that is based on a standardized and system neutral format to enable interoperability. Availability of relevant information would considerably cut the time of building the DES models, prevent mistakes in data entry and facilitate the reconfiguration analysis. This paper aims to describe how to represent the main required operational data of a manufacturing system for DES by using ISO 10303 Application Protocol 214 (STEP AP214) in order to fulfill the mentioned characteristics of data and information. Stochastic properties of manufacturing resource and corresponding processes such as measured cycle time and disturbances information are represented using application module 1274 (ISO 103031274) that defines a particular schema for probability distribution representation. A test implementation of the mentioned data including a graphical user interface has been carried out to show the feasibility of the research approach.

Customer-Based Design with Constraint Reasoning

This paper identifies some principles for computer aided customer based design. In this type of design. technical prerequisites and the range of customer requirements are typically the same over ti ...

Service Oriented Integration of Distributed Heterogeneous IT Systems in Production Engineering Using Information Standards and Linked Data

While design of production systems based on digital models brings benefits, the communication of models comes with challenges since models typically reside in a heterogeneous IT environment using different syntax and semantics. Coping with heterogeneity requires a smart integration strategy. One main paradigm to integrate data and IT systems is to deploy information standards. In particular, ISO 10303 STEP has been endorsed as a suitable standard to exchange a wide variety of product manufacturing data. One the other hand, service-oriented tool integration solutions are progressively adopted for the integration of data and IT-tools, especially with the emergence of Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration whose focus is on the linking of data from heterogeneous software tools. In practice, there should be a combination of these approaches to facilitate the integration process. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate the applications of the approaches and the principles behind them and try to find criteria for where to use which approach. In addition, we explore the synergy between them and consequently suggest an approach based on combination of them. In addition, a systematic approach is suggested to identify required level of integrations and their corresponding approaches exemplified in a typical IT system architecture in Production Engineering.

User friendly development architecture for standardised modelling : STEP Toolbox

Standardised information modelling is currently an important solution of enhancing the interoperability of computer-aided technology (CAx) systems in the manufacturing industry. The success of this solution is critically dependent on the complexity of data structure and implementation methodology. This study presents development architecture, STEP toolbox, which enables users to implement information standards via a simplified process with minimised knowledge requirements. This study starts with an analysis of relevant user groups for different types of tasks and knowledge requirements. Then STEP toolbox is presented as the simplified development architecture that consists of conceptual modelling and an object-oriented application programming interface (API). It is more convenient for typical developers than the conventional implementation methodology. Based on results from test cases for implementing three prototypes, a two-month learning process required for average developers of the information standards is expected to be eliminated.

Representation and Exchange of Digital Catalogues of Cutting Tools

Information management for manufacturing resources such as cutting tools is an important research topic in the context of cloud manufacturing. Vendors and customers usually use catalogues to communicate information for such manufacturing resource. Incompatibilities of information in syntax, semantics, and structure among supply chains often result in inefficient manual sharing and management of the catalogue information. It is difficult for cloud based applications to pool information from various sources. This communication failure calls for a system neutral solution for data modeling and exchange to enhance interoperability of the cutting tool catalogue information. Previous studies has present solutions for representation of the cutting tool information with STEP AP242 (ISO/DIS 10303-242) with semantic classification referring to a PLib (ISO 13584, Part Library) based dictionary. This approach can be extended for the catalogue modeling, due to functionalities for specification and configuration control of general product variants in the same standard.With a modeling approach with standardized information schemas, system architecture to guide implementation is proposed to enhance the communication in practice. Relative elements to represent vendors’ catalogues and customers’ requirements are modeled. Associations to the PLib-based dictionary complete semantics and enable information mapping between vendors and customers. Principles of the mapping are identified to facilitate implementation of related software systems. Prototypes are developed to verify the proposed system architecture. The proposed solution is promising to migrate to other types of products than cutting tools, because the data models are based on the general product models defined in AP242.Copyright