Enhancements and ontological use of ISO-10303 (STEP) to support the exchange of parameterised product data models

The ISO-10303 standard, called STEP, originated in 1984 and published in 1994, has been adopted by many industries including shipbuilding, aerospace and automotive. This paper throws new light on the well established standard by investigating the suitability of STEP to support the exchange of parameterised models between CAD systems. The paper points out how design intent, i.e. parameters, constraints and constructional history of a model, can be transferred to another system and it explains why the new enhancements of STEP which were published recently are able to ease the migration of a STEP-based model. The implications of these enhancements on the integration of the automotive design environment are outlined shortly and provide a showcase of these refinements.