This paper on "STEP, SGML, P-Lib, EDIFACT and VAMAS 'Developing Standards for the Global Market'" was presented at the NAFEMS World Congress on Effective Engineering Analysis - 25-28 April 1999, Newport, Rhode Island, USA.

Abstract

The “global market” is introducing the necessity to exchange and share, among any place in the world, all the information related to a product: its process, its design, its material (for the recycling), its financial information, its maintenance, and, above all, its environmental impact. For this reason Product Data Technology is continuously under development and some international standards such as STEP, SGML, P-Lib, EDIFACT, etc., are enabling people, from different Countries, to exchange and share the technical information about the product for all its life-cycle.
Therefore the product data must be structured in such a way that all the information can be easily carried with the product itself and can be exchanged in a computer understandable way during all its life-cycle.
Besides, researchers and technicians, especially from the G7 Countries, are working together and are developing international standards to “qualify in a unique way” the new materials. The materials technology is nowadays the key enabling to overcome technical limits to the application of physical principle in many fields. Materials and processes all have an important influence on the energy and the environment scene. This interest has been underlined by the Agreement among CTI (Climate Technology Initiative), the ISO (International Standard Organization) and VAMAS (Versailles project on Advanced Materials And Standards). A survey of all these initiatives is presented in this paper.