Product data standards and research: A review

Product data is becoming more and more important amongst an enterprise's key areas. This report looks at standards which address product data in the engineering and electronics environments. Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP) is seen as the most important ongoing activity in the standardization field. Research and development activities in the field of product data are also considered. Both national and international research programmes have various projects in this area, and also individual projects are being carried out. Most of the commercial applications in product data management still use traditional ways of addressing the problems in this field, but this report shows that some new generation applications and tools are already emerging. As a summary, some requirements for a good product data standard are presented. It is further shown that a full product data technology has already evolved that is capable of both formal description as well as exchange and sharing of product data.