LOTAR is an ASD-STAN and ProSTEP iViP association supported development and standardization project driven by Airbus, EADS-Military Aircraft, MTU Aeroengines, Alenia Aeronautics and BAE Systems. The goal of LOTAR is to specify auditable processes for long-term archiving of 3D-CAD and PDM data since for these data types no adequate procedures exist so far. During the project following will be specified:

• Requirements for archiving,

• Methods,

• Scenarios,

• Detailed process descriptions and process modules,

• Suitable data schematas,

• System architecture frame work,

• Recommended practices,

Core task in this Standardization project is the re-use of data to ensure the legal and official verification. As basis standards such as ISO 10303 (STEP) and ISO 14721.4 (OAIS) are consulted. The recommended practices are developed it ease the introduction of the standard to the industry. The standard and the recommended practices are not branch specific. Both could be interesting for other branches like the automotive or shipbuilding industry . The documents will be released as EN9300 series.

Within the aircraft industry high requirements exist to the processes for administration, archiving as well as re-use of product defining data. Archiving and retention of documents have to take place in such a way that they are usable mainly for the proof of:

Long term archiving of CAD data meant so far archiving of 2D drawings as paper drawings, digital files of (usually) tiff format, micro fiche or aperture cards.

Today 3D models are used as master models and 2D drawings are generated from the 3D models. The result of the development within 3D master models is that the 3D models are no longer fully dimensioned, all necessary views are only within the 3D model available. Only the combination about product structure, 3D and 2D information together describe an object completely.

For these reasons the current situation is characterized by a huge number of 3D-CAD models, grown enormously, which are kept write-protected in databases in their native formats. They are quasi safe for about 10 years but not safe in sense of legal and product liability requirements. This data must therefore be checked and migrated regularly in order to conserve the required model quality. Today a worldwide usable and general accepted solution for long term archiving does not exits.

Existing and expected results:

• Supporting the current standardization project the LOTAR working group acquired a white paper. The white paper was released in September 2002 and is available for download under: http://www.prostep.org/en/stepportal/doku/ . The content of this document are descriptions for use-cases and process analyses as well as requirements according the topics acceptance, legal demands and security. ,

• This standard is organized as a series of several parts which are divided into BASIC-, COMMON PROCESS-, and DATA DOMAIN SPECIFIC Parts. The parts are components of a modular concept for establishing the standard. The parts are developed autonomous and are extensible to include further topics, e.g. archiving for CAe- Information (FE Model) or Systems engineering.

• The BASIC PARTS give an overview of the necessary information for a common understanding for archiving digital product data. (PART 001-00x)

• The COMMON PROCESS PARTS provide a detailed description of the process steps for archiving (PART 010-0xx).

• The DATA DOMAIN SPECIFIC PARTS describe the relevant subsets of requirements and definition for specific types of data, starting with Geometry and PDM data. The parts ensure that the data to be archived comes along with the minimum subset of requirements so that current and upcoming archiving and retrieval tools will interpret the data in an unambiguous way. (PART 100 and 200 series).

BASIC PARTS 001, 002 and 004 were released for review by national standardization organizations in 2004 and will be available soon .

BASIC PARTS 003 will be released for review by national standardization organizations 2nd quarter of of 2005, the COMMON PROCESS PARTS 010 - 015 will be released in middle of 2005. After a successful review those PARTS will advance to status Green Paper. Further releases of BASIC PARTS (00x), COMMON PROCESS PARTS and DATA DOMAIN SPECIFIC PARTS are scheduled for 2005.

Under supervision of IAQG the AECMA-STAN LOTAR standardization project harmonizes and delevops jointly with Aerospace Industries Association (AIA, www.aia-aerospace.org solutions for Long Term Archiving of Digital Technical Information such as 3D geometry and PDM data. The AIA activities are supported by the Engineering Society For Advancing Mobility in Land, Sea, Air and Space (SAE, www.sae.org) and PDes Inc. (www.aticorp.org).

You are invited to provide comments or inputs to this initiative to :

You may also contact directly the members listed below.