Why LOTAR?


Goals & Benefits

Goals of LOTAR project

  • Developing a standard for archiving and retrieval of product data
  • Submission of referred and needed methods, process modules and data models as ASD-STAN standard
  • Providing methods, process modules and data model(s), to enable long term archiving of CAD and PDM data
  • Development of recommendations for practical introduction of long term archiving of 3D CAD and PDM data at industry
  • Having COTS (components off the shelf) based on user requirement due to cooperation with CAx-IF and conjoined funded pilot projects

Benefits for the aerospace and defense community

The retention of product data and digital documents according to the ASD-LOTAR standards (prEN 9300) will lead in

  • Implement archive system compliant to a international accepted standard
  • Systematic archiving of the company know-how
  • Availability of documents via a logically central instance
  • Minimization of individual errors, e.g. through document versions, which are not actual
  • High grade of security by a secure repository and access control
  • Internal legitimating of digital processes currently in use
  • Economic archiving of voluminous data
  • Applicable archiving workflow supported by new STEP interfaces & functionalities (conjointly developed with involved IT vendors) e.g. new validation properties for COPS (cloud of points) or polyline presentation of GD&T information
  • Accepted workflow by aerospace and defense authorities due to intense collaboration during standard creation (MoU, acceptance etc.)
  • By solving the challenges of long time data retention also issues of data exchange are addressed

Benefits for participants

The active participation in the LOTAR project enables

  • direct access onto project results
  • the exchange of Know-how
  • gaining personal expertise in Long Term Archiving and Retrieval
  • addressing company specific requirements

The passive participation provides the opportunity to influence the standard in ballot phase by comments and voting.

  • Therefore taking part in the LOTAR project can be highly profitable. To get further information about joining the LOTAR project, please get in touch.

Benefits for other industry branches

The spadework in long term archiving of the LOTAR project will be a benefit not only for the aerospace and defense industry but also for other branches of industry e.g. automotive industry. In particular

  • the modular concept of the prEN 9300 allows a partial implementation,
  • the detailed process description is transferable on other archiving formats,
  • practical quality criteria are defined and
  • the close collaboration with IT-Vendors will lead to recommend practices and marketable products.

Supported uses cases

The following figure demonstrates the use cases covered by the native and the archived model. The LOTAR compliant archive file may support all operational use cases as also serve as reference to verify migrated native information.

Use Cases for Native and Archived Model