Development of functionality-based conformance classes for ISO 10303 - conformance classes for tolerancing functionality

ISO 10303 which is STandard for the Exchange of Product model data (STEP) contains a large amount of extremely detailed information. There are no clear and easy instructions for implementing STEP, and the only way to check whether a developed software product actually satisfies STEP requirements is to test it using Conformance Classes (CCs), which are the subsets of STEP's application protocols (APs). However, existing CCs do not give users any idea about the functional capabilities of a software product conforming to STEP. These deficiencies necessitate the development of new CCs based on functionality, to help both developers and users. In this study, to achieve this goal, the functionalities expected for different product lifecycle (PLC) activities are defined at several functionality levels (FLs), using a layered approach. This approach allows the defining of a composite functionality (higher FLs) through the composition of simple, basic functionalities (lower FLs). Information requirements are defined for each functionality, and these information requirements are mapped to STEP entities. These groups of entities for functionalities constitute our functionality-based CCs. In this paper, tolerancing functionality has been studied to develop functionality-based CCs as an example.