Research into integrated design and manufacturing based on STEP

This paper discusses a typical STEP-compliant manufacturing environment, which effectively integrates two systems. The first generates native data that retain the information needed to machine a part on a particular machine tool, whereas the second carries out optimization for machining parameters using the dispatched information from the first system. The related research work is divided into four areas, feature generation, macro process planning, micro process planning, and machining execution. The main part of the paper is devoted to reviewing the most recent research publications. The publications have been organized into the four areas as mentioned above. The discussion section that follows looks at the STEP-compliant research from the perspectives of industrial adoption, feature recognition for process planning, challenges in STEP-enabled inspection and STEP-NC controllers.