Lessons learned implementing STEP-NC AP-238

STEP-NC AP-238 is an integrated version of the STEP-NC ISO 14649 standard that enables more data sharing with the other STEP standards for CAD, CAM and CAE applications. This paper describes how STEP-NC AP-238 is being tested for deployment in the United States of America. The tests focused on showing that STEP-NC AP-238 allows multiple CAM systems to send five-axis tool path data to multiple CNC machines without any post-processing. The paper also describes the results of previous work performed on a feature-based implementation of STEP-NC, and explains why US industry has had difficulty in adopting a feature-based implementation as its initial deployment method.