The Role of the National Institute of Standards and Technology as It Relates To Product Data Driven Engineering

The various activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the development of a Product Data Exchange Standard (PDES) will be discussed. The NIST activities will be described in terms of the unique position that the agency has in the area of standards and technology development in the United States. The NIST has an active role in participating in the formal development of the PDES standard. In addition, NIST is engaged in research and development programs involving information technologies necessary for implementing PDES and engineering technologies that make use of product data. Specific applications such as mechanical part fabrication are being used to provide a testbed for the validation and verification of PDES. The paper addresses how PDES can be used to implement needed technologies such as concurrent engineering that will improve American Industrial competitiveness. The combination of PDES implementation with concurrent engineering is called in this paper 'Product Data Driven Engineering.'