theEXPRESSway 7 - 1/2000

Visual-iSE the future: EPM Technology (EPMT) has signed a collaboration agreement with BAE SYSTEMS to develop and commercialise an advanced IT tool for engineers. The finished product is expected to generate sales of at least NOK 120 million for EPMT over the next three years. The company's IT tool is already used in the development of Eurofighter aircraft.

Integration Technology Solutions (ITS) adds EPM Technology's STEP product suite to their industryleading supply chain solutions offering. ITS have announced that it has reached agreement with EPM Technology to resell and provide services for their Express Data Manager product suite to enhance ITS's industryleading engineering and supply chain data management solutions.

In manufacturing, the information flow between the design/planning department generated by CAD/CAM systems and the shopfloor into the NC controller for machining the product is mostly done using ISO 6983, namely G-M code. Even though G-M code has been widely used in manufacturing industries for several decades, it does not support the demands of modern manufacturing technologies.

IHI,Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. and Fujitsu STEP R&D Center have developed advanced design and manufacturing systems including supply chains. In its experimental trial, the system has proved big lead time cuts.

The NASA Chief Information Officer has officially approved and released NASA-STD-2817, which includes the requirement for Computer-Aided Engineering, Design and Manufacturing Systems used by NASA to have interchange software that supports ISO 10303 (commonly referred to as STEP).

A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to use EPM's EXPRESS Data Manager product suite to develop an ISO-compliant, high-speed database system for fighter aircraftprogrammes has been signed by Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems of Fort Worth, Texas, and EPM Technology AS of Oslo, Norway.

EPM's implementation of EXPRESS and the proposed ISO amendments, EXPRESS-X and RULE schema, makes the artificial boundary between a data modelling and a programming language vanish. In EXPRESS Data Manager version 4.0 the user gets an out-of-the-box solution to keep the specification and implementation consistent. Using the Model Driven Repository concept, with the EXPRESS Virtual Machine, users have no limitations.

In the near future the total environmental impact of all transport systems will grow in line with the increase of the overall transport volume. Railways are generally considered to be the most environmentally friendly transport system but the railways will have to safeguard their system specific environmental advantage in order to compete with other means of transportation in the future.

Since EXPRESS Data Manager saw the light in the Esprit IMPPACT, the product has successfully been used in a large number of R&D projects - EU projects represent the majority. EPM seeks projects controlled by end-users with a dedicated commitment to deploy PDT and with EPM in the role as commercial vendor and architecture experts.

An international agreement has been reached to accelerate the deployment of the certification of STEP commercial implementations. STEP is a global standard accepted and used in world-wide industry.

Testability of Interaction-Driven Manufacturing Systems

The mission of the IAI is to provide a universal basis for process improvement and information sharing in the construction and facilities management industries

POSC/CAESAR has announced the completion of the harmonisation of the POSC/CAESAR and STEP AP221 data models. The work was completed mid 1999 and published as the EPISTLE Core Model Version 3.