Abstract— Integrated product development is comprised of CAD, process planning and CNC code generation based on an integrated data structure. To enable various CAD/CAM software solutions to be interoperable, it is necessary to realize reliable and robust information exchange in manufacturing enterprises. To realize interoperability there are two basic approaches: i. To focus on a neutral file format like those provided by the STEP standard to support data exchange between CAD systems as well as CAPP/CAM and CNC machining systems ii. To utilize an active and flexible platform consisting of structures and procedures to enable exchange of data seamlessly. Collaboration management of data exchange is inevitable in a collaborative product development environment. In this paper, the prominent integrated, interoperable and collaborative CAD/CAM information system platforms have been reviewed. To alleviate the problems arising from the shortcomings of the existing platforms, an integrated and interoperable platform for collaborative CAD/CAPP/CAM/CNC systems named INFELT STEP has then been proposed. The different aspects of this platform have been discussed based on an integrated, interoperable and collaborative CAD/CAPP/CAM environment. INFELT STEP has been designed to include multiple layers to support the entire range of application software packages in the CAD/CAPP/CAM product development chain. Using INFELT STEP each application software package can send items of information based on its own data structure to other packages communicating with the platform. The layers within INFELT STEP convert the application software’s processed data to the structured data model based on STEP Standard and store the structured data in INFELT STEP’s database. Conversely, the INFELT STEP layers also retrieve the structured data based on STEP standard and convert their format to match the CAD/CAM/CAPP application software’s data structure in an interoperable environment. The INFELT STEP manages CAD/CAM application software collaboration and also maintains the integration of CAD/CAM/CNC operations based on STEP data structure while supporting the flexibility of application software’s interoperability based on their own data structures. Index Terms— CAD/CAM Integration, ISO 10303 (STEP), Manufacturing Interoperability, Manufacturing Collaboration. Manuscript received May 15, 2010. Omid Fatahi Valilai is with industrial engineering department as a PhD. student, Sharif university of technology, P.O.Box : 1155-9414, azadi road, Tehran, Iran. He is also the president of Parsian Enterprise Architecture ltd, University of Tehran Science and Technology park, Tehran, Iran(omidf@ie.sharif.edu, CEO@parsianLtd.com). Mahmoud Houshmand is with the industrial engineering department as an associated professor, Sharif university of technology, P.O.Box : 1155- 9414, azadi road, Tehran, Iran (hoshmand@sharif.edu). I. INTRODUCTION Software frameworks and programs that facilitate the distributed product design and manufacturing are becoming more and more important in product development processes [1]-[2]. Different solutions and software have been developed based on these frameworks including different CAD/CAPP/CAM application software tools. Technologies developed for CAD/CAPP/CAM application software tools and CNC post processors are customized within each of their own application domains named as automation islands [3]-[5]. So, the application of these software tools in different enterprises will make trouble where it is necessary to exchange product data among engineers and designers- who are geographically spread and have different goals, knowledge, experiences, tools and resources-to support collaborative product development within an integrated product data structure [6]-[8]. These problems can be classified in three groups: 1) Management of collaboration between different CAx application software tools in product development processes. 2) Enabling the interoperability among different CAx software application tools for product data exchange. 3) Integration of product data through enterprises’ product development processes while different CAx application software tools modify the product data. To solves these problems, researchers proposed different CAx platforms and information systems. Theses platforms and information systems struggled to solve above problems. Qin in 2004 [9] introduced information system with the ability to manage the CAx application software collaboration and integrated data structure but it was not an interoperable platform and lacked for the ability to enable the product data exchange among different CAx application software. XU in 2005 [4], 2009 [3] and Nassehi in 2006 [10] suggested information systems with the ability for product data integration based on STEP standard. However, these systems lacked to manage the CAx application software collaboration and enabling the interoperability for product data exchange between different CAx application software. On the other hand, Peng in 1998 [6] and LO´ Pez-Ortega in 2005 [11] proposed platforms to facilitate the product data exchange between different CAx application software but they lacked for an integrated product data structure. Lee in INFELT STEP: An Integrated and Interoperable Platform for Collaborative CAD/CAPP/CAM/CNC Machining Systems based on STEP Standard Omid Fatahi Valilai and Mahmoud Houshmand Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2010 Vol II WCECS 2010, October 20-22, 2010, San Francisco, USA ISBN: 978-988-18210-0-3 ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online) WCECS 2010