Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1163814
16 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2019 Michael Ford: The strength of IPC standards is that each of them satisfies a particular need in the industry. DPMX is a great example where we needed to get an extremely complicated set of information from design to manufactur- ing in a single file. Why do we need to under- stand so many different files and try to put them together and cross-reference everything? It's the kind of role people would have had 20 years ago. Now, it's sent through in one digital format that has always been your digital prod- uct model for exchanging the data from design through manufacturing. Another digital standard—the Connected Factory Exchange (CFX)—allows data to be exchanged between machines and factory sys- tems. Put the two together, and you start to think, "Well, I have my digital product model exchange coming in, together with that from CFX, so I know what to do and how to do it. I can measure what I'm doing. Let's put those two things together. What benefit is that going to make? Couldn't I feed that information back through to design to make a complete digital loop for manufacturing?" But this is not something that you have to buy. This is something that is a digitally created Feature Interview by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Gary Carter of XPLM and Michael Ford of Aegis Software are heading a group tasked with combining the IPC-2581 standard, now referred to as Digital Product Model Exchange (DPMX), with IPC's Connected Factory Exchange (CFX). During the IPC Summer Meetings, they sat down with me to discuss the benefits that can be expected when these standards are fully merged for both PCB designers and process engineers on the manufacturing floor, espe- cially when it comes to satisfying compliance and traceability requirements. Andy Shaughnessy: Nice to see you both again. And I understand the two of you are co-chairs on the committee that's working on combining DPMX and CFX. Tell me about that. Gary Carter: Sure. The 2-10 Committee is look- ing to leverage the synergy between a number of IPC standards to describe now digital best practices that IPC owns, from beginning to end of design and manufacturing of PCB-based products. The Convergence: IPC Merging CFX With IPC-2581