Exchanging STEP data with Windchill

A CHANGING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

The increase in competition brought on by the accelerating use of the Web has created a buyer's market, where customers will no longer accept massproduced products that only partially address their needs. To compete in the future, manufacturers must create an environment where both customers and partners can participate in the innovation process, and where new products can be delivered dynamically as customer demand requires.

Individual suppliers and partners may contribute between 40-70 percent of the finished product. To create a complete source of product knowledge that can dynamically link manufacturing processes and business systems across organizational boundaries, companies will need to embrace and exploit the diversity of suppliers, partners, and customers.

To complicate matters, the supply chain is more fluid and dynamic than ever before, with companies choosing partners and suppliers opportunistically for each new project or product. To survive, companies must be able to acclimate themselves quickly to the processes and systems of new partners, and to collaborate flexibly.

ENABLING COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT COMMERCE

Industry analysts like GartnerGroup, the Aberdeen Group, and CIMdata have been independently observing and analyzing this change in business dynamics and agree that it represents an emerging new market, which is being called collaborative product commerce (CPC). CPC enterprise solutions are Web-based; they use the Internet to let employees, customers, and suppliers collaborate in creating, developing, and managing products throughout the entire product lifecycle.

THE WINDCHILL FACTOR! e-SERIES FOR CPC

The Windchill Factor! e-Series

TM is a comprehensive set of e-business solutions for CPC, Figure 1. Based on the Windchill federated, webcentric architecture, the Windchill Factor! e-Series provides a complete solution to product and process lifecycle management, from conception through development, manufacturing, and retirement. Windchill lets customers, partners, and suppliers collaborate in a Web environment to create innovative new products, deliver those products to market faster, and manage the complexities of an evolving supply chain.

Webcentric approach

The Windchill webcentric approach facilitates decision making by allowing access to timely and accurate information and creating an environment in which the same information is available to everyone. Windchill was designed from the ground up using standard Web technology such as Java (r), search engines, HTML, XML*, HTTP email, hyperlinks, and RMI. Viewing and modifying valuable product information is accomplished through a standard Web browser.

Federated architecture

Windchill allows manufacturers to seamlessly connect multiple, heterogeneous data sources and IT systems in a Web-based environment. The federated architecture lets companies link product information that may reside across departments and divisions, or within supplier and partner organizations. For example, Windchill can combine cost information from ERP or legacy systems and join it with an as-planned bill of materials (BOM) to create a valuable composite representation of a product, which can be accessed through a Web browser.

DATA EXCHANGE WITHIN COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT COMMERCE

With the significantly increased degree of collaboration the demand for flexible data exchange rises. In the web-based environment the capability for compo-site viewing of all business related information and exchange of product related data is key for a successful implementation of CPC. To provide a composite view on all business related information the Windchill Info*Engine is provided which allows the web-enabling of existing and new applications, using them through the web and merging their databases to one unique view.

Data exchange across a heterogeneous environment requires a unique definition for structure and contents. STEP provides this specification. The increasing importance of the web brings new technologies, which are consistent with the web approach and can be used for data exchange. Especially XML can be expected to be used as the most accepted data transportation technique in the future. Beside these new technology the need for an agreed view on data to be exchanged as well as data exchange through STEP Part 21 files still exist and will also be required in the future, e.g. for long term archiving.

USING THE BENEFITS OF STEP FOR EXCHANGING PDM DATA

The interface requirements results in an architecture for the Windchill STEP interface which separate the data export itself from the task of bringing the data in the required structure and format. Parametric Technology's interface strategy for Windchill consists of a three-step approach (Figure 2):

1. A native schema of the Windchill object model is generated. This schema is generated directly from the implemented object model described in UML. It takes therefore the user specific customization into account.
2. The native Windchill data is extracted as ISO 10303 Part 21 file. The module of writing the native Windchill data to an external file has also been extended to write these data in XML, based on a Windchill DTD file which corresponds to the native Windchill Express schema.
3. The native Part 21 file is converted to a Part 21 file of the required application protocol (e.g. AP 214, AP 203, PDM Schema) using the Express Data Manager. The mapping itself is described in EXPRESS-X, which can easily extended by the user itself.

This approach applies also for the import of STEP data in the reverse direction.

For more information:

Dr. Erik Rieger, Parametric Technology, Technical Marketing - Windchill.
erieger@ptc.com