The SEDRES project (systems engineering data representation and exchange standardization); producing a STEP-based data exchange standard supporting integrated systems engineering

A fundamental fact of life in todays partnering environments is that Integrated Product Development involves teams across companies, and frequently across countries. Often this may involve Systems Engineering activities that go across heterogeneous design tool sets. SEDRES is producing a neutral data exchange standard that will cover the key aspects of product definition that are crucial to successful Systems Engineering: product requirements, systems architectures, product functionality and allocation to architecture, traceability and configuration management information. SEDRES is a three-year European Commission-funded ESPRIT project, running 1996-1998, which was initiated by Aerospatiale, Alenia, British Aerospace, DASA and SAAB. Also contributing are the Universities of Loughborough (England), Linkoping (Sweden), and the Australian Centre for Test & Evaluation. The project will develop an interface standard, using the ISO-10303 ('STEP') approach, so design tools used to handle the product aspects handled within the Systems Engineering discipline can exchange such data. The resulting specification should be applicable to many industry sectors, including automotive, transport, petrochemical and telecommunications. The project is adopting a pragmatic approach using 'Use Scenarios', practical industrial case studies to both validate the perceived requirements for data exchange, and to subsequently verify the prototype translaters, which are being developed for many commercial Systems Engineering tools. This paper summarises the motivation for the project, and outlines the objectives, approach and programme of work. The paper explains the significance of design data exchange to the Systems Engineering process, and to the development of integrated systems. It concludes with how the draft standard is being extended in the second project phase, and reports progress to date, particularly within the International Standards Organisation forum, under the STEP standard.