Introduction

The standard STEP AP242 (ISO 10303-242) “Managed model based 3D engineering" is the merging of  2 ISO standards:

- Aerospace's STEP AP203 "Configuration controlled 3D design",
- and Automotive's STEP AP214 "Core data for automotive mechanical design processes.

The goal of this web site is to ensure the communication and awareness related to the common development and the primary use by the automotive and aerospace industries of the AP242 standard.

This web site is mainly designed for the end users (OEMs, Small and Medium Entreprises, governmental agencies) searching for a general information on:

- the scope of the STEP AP standard,
- and the overall maturities of the associated COTS STEP  interoperability solutions of the PLM vendors (in operation, tested, in preliminary stage of implementation).

This web site does not aim at describing the list of STEP AP242 COTS interfaces of PLM vendors.
This web site will refer other projects and/or other web sites for more technical or detailed information.

STEP AP242 On A Page 

To download a one page overview of STEP AP242, please click on the image below:

 

Content

 This portal provides information collected and maintained  by the STEP AP242 projects. It includes web pages describing information related to:

  • the business requirements and  the use cases targeted by the STEP AP242 standardization projects,
  • the resulting standards (AP242 edition 3, preparation of AP242 edition 4),
  • the Implementor Forums associated to the AP242 standard,
  • and finally the international recommended practices describing how this standard has to be implemented by the PLM vendors, based on interoperability test rounds.

The industries require increasingly capabilities for PLM interoperability based on open standards. A standard alone is useless. The STEP AP242 standard needs to be associated to the use cases and business requirements which clarify the context of usage. A standard must also be completed by recommended practices for their implementation, derived from shared implementation experiences gathered through Implementer Forums. All this information is usually produced by different independent projects and organizations, and widespread across different web sites, making it difficult to have a global picture and a comprehensive access to all the relevant information.
This web site aims at helping the different categories of actors to access to the information relevant for their needs related to the AP242 standard, without duplicating information already managed by other associated web sites (E.g. CAx-IF, ISO /TC 184 /SC4).