Interoperability Forums Interoperability Forums

Introduction

The industries invest in the development of open interoperability standards. This will provide business value only if these standards are implemented in COTS solutions with the required level of interoperability.

Interoperability Forums are set up to ensure the timely deployment of interoperable COTS solutions.

The figure here after summs up the principles of an Interoperability Forum:

 

An Interoperability Forum comprises:

  • A User Group: A group of industrials or industry representatives, all members of at least one of the Interoperability Forum hosting organizations
  • An Implementer Group: A group of software vendors, 3rd party integrators, and independent implementers that validate recommended practices based on prioritized use cases defined by the user group

Interoperability forums rely on specific procedures associating manufacturing companies and COTS PLM providers and integrators. They request a specific infrastructure to manage the test rounds (test data, quality check, statistics, etc), and specific technical facilitators, organizing the test rounds between the COTS PLM providers and integrators, and interacting with the users community.

Deliverables

While the Interoperability forum provides the project management services, the subgroups provide the following deliverables:

  •  User Group:
    •  Requirements with validation properties
    •  Prioritized Use Cases
    •  Test cases definition (incl. means of verification)
    •  User best practices
    •  Web pages & communication
  •  Implementer Group
    •  Vendors capabilities benchmark
    •  Test rounds reports
    •  Recommended practices
    •  Define requirements for standard updates
    •  Web pages & communication

Types of Interoperability Forums

According to their scope, open standards for product information interoperability may answer to one or several “families of use cases”: file exchange, long term archiving, visualization, integration / federation based on services, analytics, etc.

Interoperability forums interact with other organizations, as shown in the next picture:


 

Complex A&D product information interoperability use cases rely on different types of product information (Structural, electrical systems, hydraulic systems, embedded software, etc), supported by different standards.

Therefore, Interoperability Forums are classified in two categories:

  • Interoperability Forums based on a named standard (or a specific technical domain of a named standard), such as ISO 10303 STEP AP242.
  • Interoperability Forums based on a combination of named standards, which have close links with the associated I-F of the named standard. This second category is more complex, and is in preparation.

List of Interoperability Forums of interest for the European A&D industries

Name
Related standard
Technical domain
Creation year
CAx IF
STEP AP242
Mechanical
1999
PDM IF
STEP AP242
PDM & Configuration Management
2016
CAE IF
STEP AP209
Modelling and analysis
2017
EWIS IF
STEP AP242
Electrical Wiring Harness
2019
RV&V IF (*)
STEP (AP242, AP239)
Systems Engineering
2019

 (*): MBSE Interoperability Forum in preparation. Contacts: Adrian Murton and Yves Baudier

Hosting organizations: AFNeT, prostep ivip and PDES Inc are extending the initial CAx IF Memorandum of Understanding to cover all above Interoperability Forums.