STEP-NC is the result of a ten-year international effort to replace the RS274D (ISO 6983) G and M code standard with a modern associative language. The new standard connects CAD design data to CAM process data so that smart applications can understand both the design requirements for a part and the manufacturing solutions developed to make that part. STEP-NC builds on a previous ten-year effort to develop the STEP standard for CAD to CAD and CAD to CAM data exchange, and uses the modern geometric constructs in that standard to specify device independent tool paths, and CAM independent volume removal features. This paper reviews a series of demonstrations carried out to test and validate the STEP-NC standard. These demonstrations were an international collaboration between industry,

Recently there has been an increased focus on the environmental aspects of the manufacturing industry across the world. Boeing and NIST have studied the incorporation of Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) parameters into Discrete Event Simulation (DES) as a means to analyze sustainable performance in the manufacturing area. Accurate analysis of manufacturing processes using Discrete Event Simulation requires detailed CNC production data. Using MTConnect, production LCA data from Boeing shop floor machine tools was acquired and was used to develop Discrete Event Simulation models. We will discuss our implementation, and analyze results of incorporating shop floor LCA data directly in DES models.

A joint effort between Boeing and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was undertaken for validating and evaluating STEP AP238 (STEP-NC) Conformance Class 1 (CC1) for 5-axis machining. STEP-NC is a new manufacturing standard to support “design anywhere, build anywhere, and support anywhere.” The joint Boeing/NIST validation intended to prove that five-Axis AP-238 programs with tool center programming (TCP), as opposed to that of axis movement data, are portable. Current RS274 “G code” part programs that use axis movement data are bound to a single CNC, are ineffective on different machine tools, and cannot be used for the exchange of information between process planning, work preparation, tooling, and other production processes. All of these obstacles add considerable time and cost to the production life cycle of a machine part. This paper discusses the joint Boeing/NIST STEP-NC TCP validation work. The major findings were that STEP-NC TCP geometrical data is portable across different 5-axis configuration CNCs. This came with a caveat, that although CNC programs can be “data-neutral”, they are not necessarily “process-neutral”.

Kaizen is a part of Lean Manufacturing that focuses on the concept of continuous improvement to reduce waste. For implementing Kaizen on the factory floor, comprehensive and efficient tools for data acquisition, process measurement and analysis are required. The MTConnect open specification provides for cost-effective data acquisition on the manufacturing floor for machine tools and related devices. This paper will look at a Kaizen implementation on the shop floor level for continuous improvement using real-time MTConnect data. The Kaizen transformation of machine data into production knowledge was performed in order to understand energy consumption, asset operation and process performance. The paper takes a detailed examination of the machine tool energy management.