Overview
The International standard's objective is to provide a mechanism that is capable of describing product data throughout the life cycle of a product, independent from any particular system. The nature of this description makes it suitable not only for neutral file exchange, but also as a basis for implementing and sharing product databases and archiving.
Typically STEP can be used to exchange data between CAD, Computer-aided manufacturing, Computer-aided engineering, Product Data Management/EDM and other CAx systems. STEP is addressing product data from mechanical and electrical design, Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, analysis and manufacturing, with additional information specific to various industries such as automotive, aerospace, building construction, ship, oil and gas, process plants and others.
STEP is developed and maintained by the ISO technical committee TC 184, Automation systems and integration, sub-committee SC 4, Industrial data. Like other ISO and IEC standards STEP is copyright by ISO and is not freely available. However, the 10303 EXPRESS schemas are freely available, as are the recommended practices for implementers.
Other standards developed and maintained by ISO TC 184/SC 4 are:
- ISO 13584 PLIB - Parts Library
- ISO 15531 MANDATE - Industrial manufacturing management data
- ISO 15926 Process Plants including Oil and Gas facilities Life-Cycle data
- ISO 18629 PSL- Process specification language
- ISO 18876 IIDEAS - Integration of industrial data for exchange, access, and sharing
- ISO 22745 Open technical dictionaries and their application to master data
- ISO 8000 Data quality
STEP is closely related with PLIB (ISO 13584, IEC 61360).
Read more about this topic: ISO 10303