Introduction

This document provides a specification for the Task specification Data Exchange Specification (DEX). A DEX specification details how to use ISO 10303-239 "Product Life Cycle Support" (PLCS) in a particular business context. ISO 10303-239 is part of the ISO 10303 (STEP) set of International Standards for the computer-interpretable representation of product information and for the exchange of product data. The objective of ISO 10303 is to provide a neutral mechanism capable of describing products throughout their life cycle. This mechanism is suitable not only for neutral file exchange, but also as a basis for implementing and sharing product databases, and as a basis for archiving.

ISO 10303-239 PLCS - Product Life Cycle Support specifies an information model that defines what information can be exchanged and represented to support a product through life. Examples of such information are:

information for defining a complex product and its support solution;
information required to maintain a complex product;
information required for through life configuration change management of a product and its support solution.

The DEX specification:

identifies a subset of the ISO 10303-239 "Product Life Cycle Support" information model that is to be used in a given business context;
provides usage guidance for how ISO 10303-239 PLCS is to be used;
details extensions to ISO 10303-239 PLCS.

Introduction to the Task Specification DEX

The Task Specification DEX enables the exchange of all information required for describing a single typical task. This task specification shall then be used for planning and executing work on an actual serialized product.

The exchange is assumed to be between the main product developer and the customer/end-user.

Tasks are defined during the Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) in response to expected maintenance requirements. Tasks might be refined or modified in light of experience and changing design or support solution.

A task specification may refer to other task specifications, either as pre-/post condition tasks or as task specification that is describing a task step (collection of tasks).

NOTE In the first instance, this DEX is only described in the light of a maintenance task. In future it will be developed to specify operational and other types of tasks.

NOTE Life-cycle information, in the respect of successive refinement of a task specification, has not been included in this issue.

NOTE Exchanges between product developers will be dealt with later.

NOTE The exchange of a task set (a collection of, not necessarily related, tasks) can be achieved by producing an exchange file containing a single message with multiple content items. Each content item follows the specification given in the Task Specification DEX.

Related DEXs

The information exchanged by the Task Specification DEX is normally between a product developer and a customer/end-user. It is assumed that each party has access to the Product information including breakdowns, equipments, components, effectivities etc.

The Product information can be exchanged using the following DEXs

DEX (D001):— Product Breakdown for Support. This DEX can be used to specify the as designed product structure of an aircraft, including configuration effectivities. It will incorporate a breakdown structure detailing what parts can be fitted into which positions on the aircraft.

Structure of the DEX

The DEX comprises the following sections:

Terms provides a definition of terms used in this DEX;
Scope outlines the scope of the information covered by the DEX;
ISO 10303-239 Activity model uses the ISO 10303-239 Activity model to illustrate the business activities that are supported by the DEX;
Business overview provides a high level overview of the business process / application that this DEX is intended to support;
Business information overview provides a high level overview of the business information that can be represented by this DEX;
Business information requirements provides a more detailed overview of the information that the business process / application described in Business overview requires;
ISO 10303-239 representation provides technical details of how the business information requirements identified in Business information requirements are represented in using ISO 10303 239 PLCS;
Template lists all the templates that are used in the definition of this DEX;
Schemas identifies the information models that define the DEX, namely:
- The EXPRESS, task_set.exp ( HTML view) model for the DEX;
- The XML Schema for the DEX derived from the EXPRESS according to ISO 10303-28 edition 2.
Reference data lists the reference data classes used by this DEX;
Conformance defines the requirements for applications to conform to this DEX.

Supporting material

Further information about DEXs, and technical details how they are structured can be found at: DEXlib information.