EXPRESS Data Manager "Down Under"

AusSTEP is a member of the Wittenoom Associates Group, consulting engineers serving the resource development industries in Australia for over 30 years. Other activities of the group include naval architecture and advanced project software development.

Says Richard Wittenoom, "Australian industry has been told about new product data technologies such as STEP and EXPRESS for more than five years now, but few people have actually seen anything work." People who wanted to get started on product modeling have had to make do with NIAM or similar modeling tools because the EXPRESS tools available have not been tested successfully. "Our first experience of the EDM was quite different, he said. It loaded and ran straight away."

Wittenoom was impressed by the demonstration 'movie' that is available on EPM Technology's web site. "It is an excellent introduction to the software that can quickly point a first time user in the right direction."

AusSTEP sees a large market potential in the offshore, process plant, mining and defense sectors in Australia. Although now these industries are largely separate, they share the same pool of manufacturers, suppliers, consultants and contractors.

"It's only a matter of time before these industries wake up to the benefits of effective life-cycle data management, Wittenoom told "The EXPRESSway." "The long process of proving concepts and working out how to implement technologies in industry has been taking place in the Northern hemisphere for many years."

Wittenoom claimed that Australia had a dismal record of supporting the achievements of its own inventors and developers, or accepting 'unproven' products.

"I've tried for some years to interest major firms in testing the use of electronic libraries of product information," he said. "The response I received was usually, 'we're not going to bet the company on unproven technology'." By contrast, Australia was among the first countries in the world to take up advanced industry technologies once these were mature and proven. "Take-up of technologies such as the VCR and mobile phone has proved this, he said. "I see the product data technologies of STEP, EXPRESS and life- cycle data warehousing through the new POSC/CAESAR standard being taken up in the same way once industry wakes up to the potential."

To support this Wittenoom has been pushing for a program of education and training in the enabling technologies support-ing product data modeling, representation and exchange. He sees the EXPRESS Data Manager as a valuable tool in this.

"There are only a handful of people in Australia who are conversant with these underlying technologies, and even fewer with hands-on experience in their use, he said. "That's why tools such as the EXPRESS Data Manager are so important. People can begin to understand the logic of the architectures once they begin to model information and use it effectively."

Wittenoom has been a Standards Australia delegate to ISO TC184/SC4 since 1994. He is the Part Editor of ISO 14959-1, Parametric Representation and Exchange ­ Overview and General Principles. He is the Australian representative to the new POSC/CAESAR standard within ISO TC184/SC4, and is technical coordinator for STEP Process Plant and Parametrics for the Standards Australia committee IT/6/1. His partner Peter Edmonds is coordinator for STEP Shipbuilding in Australia. He is also a member of the foundation Board of the Australasia Chapter of the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), another user of EXPRESS which he sees as a potential user of the EXPRESS Data Manager tools.

AusSTEP Consultants Pty. Ltd.
Electronic Commerce for Development Industry
168 Stirling Highway, Nedlands
W.A. 6009, Australia
Phone (+61 8) 9389 7199
Fax (+61 8) 9389 7177
E-mail: AusSTEP@world.net
URL: http://www.wt.com.au/~ausstep