Enhancing STEP-based Interoperabity Using Model Morphisms

Abstract

An increasing need for collaboration among organizations is demonstrated by the continuous pursuit of methodologies for improving businesses. Nevertheless, the lack of interoperability among enterprise application systems is nowadays becoming one of the principal barriers to achieve the desired time-to-market. To overcome that barrier, organizations need to adopt rigorous strategies and use international standards for data exchange, such as ISO 10303 (STEP), in their own systems. This way, seamless communication can be achieved at the various levels of the organization (i.e. data, application, and enterprise/organization levels), enabling stronger links and cooperation’s. However, some organizations, especially the Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME), have been experiencing some problems handling STEP, due to the poor and expensive software support and usage of complex technologies. This paper proposes to apply MDA and Model Morphism methodologies for the manipulation and transformation of STEP conceptual models to more widespread implementation oriented technologies, such as XML or OWL, easier to to adoption by smaller organizations. This approach is being validated in industrial scenarios in the scope of the European research project, ATHENA-IP.