State of the arts in manufacturing software standardization

The role of manufacturing software, such as being used in CAD/CAM/CAE, production management and scheduling, facility control, has increased the importance. The development of the unique platform and the common environment for them is also required in the internationally standardized way. This paper reports the history and the state of the arts in the standardization of manufacturing software in ISO/TC184 (industrial automation) from 1980s. There had been discussed in the manufacturing data description mainly in 20^th Century that led the establishment of ISO MAPLE standards. Present trend has shifted from data standardization to software capability description in this field. The methodology of manufacturing software capability profiling is presented.