FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                    Mark Bello           
Aug. 21, 1996                             (301) 975-3776
                                          mark.bello@nist.gov

                                          TN-6118

                  NIST MODEL EYED AS STANDARD
                                
              FOR MANAGING MANUFACTURING RESOURCES

     Helping manufacturers select the right combination of tools
for production jobs is one of several key applications being eyed
for a computer model recently developed at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology. The model now serves as the basis
for an international data-exchange standard and is contributing
to such innovations as electronic tooling catalogs.

     The new NIST model provides a common foundation for
organizing manufacturing resources and representing them in
computer-interpretable form. Such resources include machine
tools, along with a large supporting cast of cutting tools, tool
holders and adaptors, inserts, assembly devices, and other
components and accessories.

     The NIST approach's primary technical strength--the means to
several performance advantages--is its emphasis on common
interfaces and a unifying data structure. NIST manufacturing
researchers are proffering their model as the starting point for
international standards that could end a confusing state of
affairs.

      To make good engineering decisions," says NIST mechanical
engineer Kevin Jurrens, manufacturers must be able to access
relevant and accurate information about the resources available
to them. This need is widely recognized, but it has been
addressed in many different ways, most of which are
company-specific or application-specific."                        

      Such diversity can lead to information anarchy. In a
single factory, data describing a single piece of equipment or
one of its components may be represented in multiple ways and in
multiple formats, each one specific to a particular use," Jurrens
explains. This can cause real problems. An engineer may or may
not have access to the most recent set of resource data. To
complicate matters, different people may use the same terminology
to mean different things."

     Earlier this year, a committee within the International
Organization for Standardization, or ISO, was the first to
capitalize on NIST's object-oriented approach to specifying and
structuring the types of data required for manufacturing
resources. The Geneva-based organization's technical committee on
small tools, known as TC 29, chose a subset of the model as the
baseline for a new international standard that will enable
computer-to-computer exchanges of data describing the
characteristics of turning tools.

     Although the model's uses go well beyond cutting-tool data,
the committee's decision is an important first step in the
international standards arena. At a recent meeting of a TC 29
working group, NIST was nominated to head the ad hoc body that
will lead efforts to achieve international consensus on all the
details of the prospective data exchange standard. This work will
benefit from the experiences of the Metalworking Systems Division
of Kennametal Inc., one of the world's largest suppliers of
cutting tools. The company volunteered to test the NIST model,
using it to organize a sample tooling database. Its feedback will
help guide refinement of the standard.  

     At the same time, Jurrens and NIST computer scientist Mary
Elizabeth Algeo are serving as advisers to a committee of the
American National Standards Institute. Administered by the
Cemented Carbide Producers Association, the ANSI/CCPA B212
committee represents the official U.S. position in TC 29's
standard-development activity.

     Meanwhile, NIST is exploring other avenues for advancing the
standardization of other elements of the information model. While
uses of manufacturing resource data cut across manufacturing
functions, Jurrens explains, standards committees tend to focus
on specific types of hardware or on particular computer
applications. Within ISO, standardization of manufacturing
resource data is likely to require the cooperation of committees
in three separate technical areas--machine tools, small tools and
industrial data.

     TC 29's efforts could help pave the way, suggests Jim
Diener, a manufacturing research program manager at Caterpillar
Corp. and head of the ANSI/CCPA committee. "It's helpful to have
a vision of what a manufacturing resource model should look like
and what it should do," he says. "That didn't seem possible only
a few years ago. Maybe after TC 29 is done, the other ISO
technical committees will see the value of using the model and
efforts toward full implementation of the manufacturing resource
model as a standard will go forward." 

     NIST researchers and their industrial partners also hope to
smooth the way. They will assess the model's performance in a
variety of applications, beginning with process planning and cost
estimating. Results of this validation testing, along with
subsequent refinements to the model, should facilitate
standardization of a common data structure for manufacturing
resources, Jurrens says.   

     The seeds for the NIST model were planted by companies
participating in the rapid response manufacturing project, a
five-year, 10-firm effort that receives matching support from
NIST's Advanced Technology Program and RRM consortium members. In
the multiproject collaboration, General Motors, Ford, Texas
Instruments, United Technologies, and Lockheed Martin Energy
Systems have joined with manufacturing software suppliers to
develop methods that will halve the time required to design and
make new products. 

     One technical aim is to build an integrated model that
uniformly and reliably captures both product and process
information. In focusing on manufacturing resources, NIST
researchers are tackling a key element of the challenge to
integrate software applications from design through production.   

     NIST's standards-focused approach, Algeo explains, would
promote seamless systems integration. It also would permit
tooling data supplied by vendors to be automatically entered into
the databases of their manufacturing customers. That capability
would eliminate duplicative inputting as well as redundant stores
of information. This can cause data management headaches and
impact process planning, scheduling, cost estimating, tool
management, numerical control programming and other important
tasks.

     "For many applications, it comes down to getting the right
data, and to maintaining that data," says Len Hermann, senior
applications engineer at the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing
Sciences, a Cincinnati-based maker of manufacturing software. "If
you want knowledge-based tools for process-planning or
cost-estimating, then you must have access to very detailed data.
Right now, unfortunately, it takes a lot of up-front labor and a
lot of continuing effort to build and maintain a tool and
resource database with the required level of detail. Most
companies aren't willing to spend the time and the resources." 

     "With a common nomenclature and standard format," says
Hermann, a member of the ANSI/CCPA committee, "the job becomes
much easier for everybody"--tooling and software suppliers and,
especially, their manufacturing customers. 

     Besides the RRM consortium, other research efforts are
taking advantage of the model's availability. A University of
Michigan professor, for example, is using the model in a project
to develop a guide to aid decisions on purchases of machine
tools. The NIST model also is being eyed as the basis for on-line
tooling catalogs, where vendors would list the specifications of
their products.

     As a non-regulatory agency of the Commerce Department's
Technology Administration, NIST promotes U.S. economic growth by
working with industry to develop and apply technology,
measurements and standards. 
                                
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