AUTO-TROL DEMONSTRATES MONARCH OPERATING ENVIRONMENT FOR MANUFACTURING MARKET

Object-Oriented Integration Platform Breaks Stranglehold on CAD Data, Eases Application Development

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 21, 1992 -- At Object World today, Auto-trol Technology demonstrated Monarch, an open, standards-based integrating environment for engineering application integration and development. Based on object-oriented technology, Monarch is the industry's first implementation of the Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP, ISO standard 10303). Scheduled for formal release this winter, Monarch paves the way to eliminating many of the software bottlenecks and inefficiencies plaguing manufacturing companies today.

Until now, manufacturers battled with the proprietary nature of most engineering systems to develop and integrate new applications, making it a costly, time-consuming effort that often resulted in limited benefits. Monarch breaks this stranglehold on engineering data, providing a cost-effective system for integrating existing manufacturing and non-manufacturing applications as well as a platform for developing a new generation of object-oriented, STEP-compliant applications capable realizing the benefits of concurrent engineering -- real-time data sharing between different design teams on a project.

"Monarch represents Auto-trol's vision of the future of systems integration, and has the potential to fundamentally change the way manufacturers do business,'' said Thomas Rafferty, Auto-trol's vice president of marketing and systems development. "It's a future in which design engineers and manufacturing and support personnel can apply best-of-class tools to solving their problems while management can access the information it needs to make sound business decisions. Applications developed for Monarch can finally make concurrent engineering a reality.''

According to Daratech, Inc, a Cambridge, Mass., research company, software sales in the CAD market are expected to reach $8.1 billion in 1992, with double digit growth forecast for next year. And by 1996, London-based market research company Ovum Ltd. predicts, total annual revenues for object-oriented development tools and languages will reach nearly $2 billion.

Monarch brings together best-of-class third-party technologies in three-dimensional modeling, constraint management, graphics display and object-oriented database management in a vendor-neutral, standards-based environment. Monarch provides all the functionality of today's best engineering applications while remaining virtually independent of any of the underlying constituent technology components, providing plug-and-play capability at both the data and application levels.

Monarch eases the integration of existing engineering and business productivity applications, providing an efficient path for discrete manufacturing organizations to migrate their legacy applications to STEP compliance. Monarch also provides an open, standards-based platform for developing a new generation of object-oriented, STEP-compliant applications capable of interoperating concurrently on STEP data. Developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), STEP enables everyone involved in the design, manufacture and support of a product to create, access and share its information.

Standards-Based Application Integration

As an integration platform, Monarch offers a highly flexible infrastructure to accommodate a variety of software tools. It eliminates the need to"hard-wire'' every application individually to every other application. Instead, each new application need only be brought into the Monarch STEP framework, which acts as a software bus to link all applications together. As a result, engineers can apply best-of-class software for highly specialized functions such as structural and motion analyses, rapid prototyping, machine tool operation and other related functions, creating a highly functional, customized design/engineering environment. And once an application is integrated into Monarch, the data remains "evergreen'' due to its STEP compliance.

"For years, design, manufacturing, support and management teams within manufacturing companies have operated as islands of information separated by incompatible software and data formats,'' explained Rafferty. "With the degree of integration afforded by Monarch, engineers will no longer have to finish a design and `throw it over the wall' to manufacturing. The more efficient interaction between groups will help them achieve a greater degree of product refinement than is possible using today's proprietary systems.''

A Platform for Software Development

Monarch allows software developers to focus their efforts strictly on developing specialized application functionality by providing them with a complement of core system-level resources. Built from the ground up to fully exploit the benefits of object-oriented technology, Monarch encapsulates best-of-class technology components developed by Auto-trol and third-party vendors:

• A full implementation of the STEP application protocols -- enables new and existing applications to achieve STEP compliance.
• The STEP Data Access Interface (SDAI) -- provides a standard programming interface to all objects stored in a single, vendor-neutral database. While the STEP standard enables any database to be used, Monarch's initial implementation utilizes an object-oriented database provided by Object Design, Inc.
• The STEP solids modeler -- provides surface and solids modeling engines (through the ACIS modeler from Spatial Technologies, Inc. and Advanced Geometry Library from Applied Geometry), variational geometry capability and supports geometry creation, transformation, intersection, evaluation and editing (through STEP C++ objects) required to build modeling applications.
• The display system -- uses STEP standard presentation objects to display geometry objects through PHIGS and PEX, performing display operations such as windowing and viewing, cursor control, rubberbanding, picking and advanced rendering functions.
• A CORBA-compliant distributed object management system -- Common Object Request Broker Architecture enhances enterprise-wide distributed computing by providing a platform-neutral, standards-based communication link between applications, resources and data for plug-and-play integration. (Object request broker implementations from HyperDesk and Digital Equipment Corporation are being evaluated.)
• A user interface management system (UIMS) -- enables developers to rapidly prototype platform-independent, user-configurable graphical user interfaces for their applications in real time.

Object-Oriented Architecture

Because of Monarch's object-oriented architecture, these core system resources can be easily plugged in and out without affecting existing applications, ensuring that the most state-of-the-art technology components can be utilized. Each Monarch-compliant application will easily plug-and-play with all other Monarch applications, and be able to share data with all engineering and business productivity applications integrated into the Monarch environment.

"The goal of Monarch is really very simple -- enterprise-wide integration,'' explained Rafferty. We're leveraging object-oriented technology to create a networked environment in which all the tools used by a manufacturing company can work together, with all the data stored as objects in a single, non-proprietary database format.''

Pricing and Availability

Monarch is scheduled for general availability in Q1 1993 through the Auto-trol Systems Integration Group for manufacturing companies throughout the US and Canada. Monarch will be released to third-party systems integrators in Europe in Q2 1993.

Pricing for Monarch will be determined on a contract-by-contract basis through Auto-trol's Systems Integration Group. Typical Monarch systems integration will cover the analysis of the current situation and requirements, design of the Monarch-based solution and systems integration within the existing environment.

Based in Denver, Colorado, Auto-trol Technology Corporation is an international systems integrator on the forefront of graphics and information technology. For 30 years, Auto-trol has provided advanced automation solutions in the areas of technical information management, process plant design, mechanical design and manufacturing, office and industrial facilities, civil engineering, mapping and electronic publishing.

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