First US Demonstration of STEP-NC AP238

Benet Laboratories, Watervliet, NY
November 30, 2000

Keynote Speaker

Richard Neal
Executive Director, Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative gave the keynote speech concerning manufacturing, interoperability, and cooperation

First Year Demonstration

The first demonstration was held on November 30, 2000 at the Benet Laboratories of Watervliet Arsenal. The Arsenal is the oldest manufacturing arsenal in the USA. Founded in 1812 as the USA's response to the better cannon of the Royal Navy, the Watervliet Arsenal can claim to be the oldest high tech manufacturing facility in the United States.

From CAM to Controller

The demonstration featured an FB Mach CAM system being used to make the STEP-NC data, and a Bridgeport Machine Tool controller being used to make the part. FB Mach is a Computer Aided Manufacturing system developed by Honeywell FM&T for the Department of Energy. In the demonstration it read a STEP file from a CAD system, an operator used its advanced feature recognition capabilities to compute a manufacturing plan, and the result was written as a STEP file containing all the information required to make a part. The Super Model read the data written by FB Mach and added the information to its database. A Bridgeport Controller modified by Electro-Mechanical Integrators (EMI) used the Intelligent Interface to read the manufacturing data. The Intelligent Interface found the information necessary for a milling machine to make the part, and it presented that information in a form that is easy to process on the PC based control.

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