Enhancing CNC manufacturing interoperability with STEP-NC

Despite substantial improvements CNC manufacturing is still based on dated practices and habits. This is mostly due to the use of ISO 6983 standard (G-codes) combined with vendor specific formats to exchange CAD/CAM/ CNC information. The manufacturing sector is consequently made of a collection of disconnected elements that are difficult to make communicate together. On the contrary STEP-NC approach offers many opportunities to overtake the current situation and rethink CAD/CAM/CNC numerical chains. However, the actual integration of STEP-NC in industrial concerns is quite limited. It is essential to couple this innovative approach with existing equipments. This paper shows how STEP-NC can be an efficient way to reconcile today's interoperability and efficiency demands by introducing the association of two manufacturing platforms: SPAIM, developed at IRCCyN (France), and which controls current industrial machine tools directly from STEP-NC files and IIMP from the University of Auckland (New Zealand), which realizes data portability between heterogeneous proprietary formats, process interoperability. As a result, both approaches lead to improved supervision and integration of the machining systems.