Quality Information Framework (QIF) Design Meeting
Meeting Minutes
Draft zeroth version, 22 Jun 2012
Meeting Date/Time: 12, 13, 14 June 2012
Meeting Place: Sonesta Hotel, Hilton Head Island, SC
QIF WG Chairman: Bill Rippey
Secretary: Bill Rippey
Attendees (24 local attendees, 2 others via teleconference)
CATegories {User, Vendor, General interest}
QIF Working group STATus {Member, Observer}
Name
Company
Admire, Ray
Lockheed Martin
Brown, Curtis
Honeywell FM&T
Brown, Robert
Mitutoyo America
Cheetham, Andrew
Renishaw
Cope, Jeff
InspectionXpert
Fischer, Lyle
Capvidia
Golan, Sam
PAS-Technology
Hailu, Hilena
AMT
Hayes, Eric
Nikon Metrology
Haywood, Rob
Nikon Metrology
Heagy, Rex
Wilcox
Hoffman, Scott
Metrology Integrators
Horst, John
NIST
Huang, Hui Min
NIST
Kramer, Tom
NIST
Leland, Cory
John Deere
Lindquist, Richard
SAAB Aerostructures/KTH
Luniewski, Tomasz
Capvidia
Maggiano, Larry
Mitutoyo America
Pippenger, Brian
Rolls-Royce
Rippey, Bill - chairman,
NIST
secretary
Sobel, Will
System Insights, MTConnect
Sokol, Dan
Renaissance Services
Squier, Bailey
DMSC
Stone, Bob
Origin International
Zink, Joe
Hexagon Metrology
Purpose of the Meeting:
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Tues Wed
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1. Fine tune the design of QIF: clarify its overall scope and workflow, and especially define the
scope and requirements of the recently defined application areas (QMStatistics, QMRules,
QMResources). Some data modeling may be done for QMPlans. Formal WG meetings will be
QIF, QMPlans, QMResources, QCDirectives. The QMResults WG will give a status report only.
2. Review current status of outreach, and generate a prioritized list of tasks for technical
development strategy and outreach strategy (e.g., IMTS 2012 and pilot projects). Outreach
goals include disseminating information and gaining implementation credibility.
Out of scope:
 schema design (too low technical level). Citing of requirements for schema design is OK
(e.g., extensibility, modularity, ease of serialization/deserialization)
 raison d'etre for QIF.
Acknowledgement: the chairman thanks John Horst for his contributions to the minutes.
Proposed Agenda:
1. Kickoff - welcome, meeting goals, proposed agenda
2. Status of QIF Development
a. Reading of minutes of May 2011 meeting
b. Review of data model and XML schemas
c. Status of documentation
d. Status of pilot projects
e. Status of outreach
f. Attendee introductions
3. Status of QIF Activity Model and QIF Requirements
a. Review models
b. Review requirements
c. Discuss schema design philosophy issue
4. QMResults Working Group Status Report
a. Status of technical work
b. Review of traceability issues
c. Discuss next steps strategy
5. QMPlans Working Group Meeting
a. Status
b. Data model review
c. Demo plans
6. Review status of outreach, discuss next steps
7. QCDirectives Working Group Meeting
a. Influence of Model Based Engineering/Design
b. Need for a standard GD&T font
c. Status of liaison with STEP
d. Generate next steps strategy
8. QMStatistics Design
9. QMRules Design
10. QMResources Design
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11. Parking Lot issues from May 2011
12. Develop Prioritized QIF Strategy
Note: the originally published agenda was changed as the meeting progressed, to accommodate
discussion of high priority topics. The items QMStatistics Design, QMRules Design, QMResources
Design, and Parking Lot Issues from May 2011 were not addressed, in favor of increased time spent on
higher priority items.
Overview
There were 28 attendees with 4 of those attending remotely. The QIF WG enjoyed the first time active attendance
of two major first article inspection (FAI) software solution vendors. The WG also benefitted from the first time
participation of a vendor with product offering demonstrating MBD CAD+PMI (standards-based and proprietary)
to XML Schema for quality measurement.
Kickoff
The agenda and goals above were proposed and accepted by consensus. The material presented by chairman
Rippey is in file QIFMeetingKickoffJune2012.pptx
Status of QIF Development
The material for this part of the meeting is in file StatusOfQIFDevelopmentJune2012.pptx. Rippey
presented a “boiled down” version of the (10 pages of) minutes of the May 2011 QIF WG meeting as a
way to start the status review. Next subjects included: the current QIF design process, current
requirements, DMSC committee organization. Tom Kramer, the current QIF “librarian”, did a short
walkthrough of the data models expressed by QMResults.xsd, QMPlans.xsd, and the QIF library.
Status of QIF documentation - there are 3 conference papers, and “Design and Usage Guide for V0.92 of
QIF” documents available for download at the www.qifstandards.org web site. Annotation of type
declarations in the schema files are only about 60 % complete, and a data dictionary for the QIF data
model is planned but not yet begun. There are basic example XML data files for plans and results
available with the current V0.92 schema files.
Outreach - Outreach is performed to provide information about QIF and to gain credibility that QIF is
sound and useful technically. Current information efforts are focusing on 3 documents published by
NIST, and plans to give a demo at a trade show, likely IMTS 2012. Liaison with standards groups
includes activities in DMIS harmonization, contact with ASME Y14.5 committee members, discussions
with MTConnect, attendance at a meeting of IAQG by J. Horst, the current exercise by QMResults WG
to ensure QIF meets requirements of AS9102a, and monitoring of Model Based Engineering (MBE) and
Model Based Design (MBD) efforts. Current pilot projects include an ongoing project with Lockheed
Martin to generate QMResults files, several draft plans for a trade show demo, and some interactions
with MTConnect.
Attendees did brief self introductions, citing company, their role in the company and type of interest in
QIF.
Status of QIF Activity Model and QIF Requirements
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The presentation and discussion material for this part of the meeting is in
QIFActivityModelAndRequirementsJune2012.pptx.
Activity model - Rippey showed several versions of activity models that appear in QIF documents and
presentations. In general they are all consistent schematically, but differ in presentation style, and are not
precise regarding the areas of Resources and Rules, and upstream product definition processes. The
Chairman’s opinion is that QIF would benefit from having a comprehensive, authoritative activity
model, both for visual recognition by potential QIF users, and for guiding working groups in data model
design. The suggestion was made in general discussion that there should be a more detailed and
documented workflow at upstream processes (e.g., CAD + PMI) to communicate with people outside
DMSC.
QIF design principles mentioned as desirable:
 The DMSC should ensure that QIF does not limit its functionality to model based engineering
processes (including use of AP 242), and that our documentation should indicate this.
 It was asked if the activity model could show 2D workflow, and the reverse engineering use
case. Would using IDEF 1X improve the activity model?
 QIF design should not restrict data to any particular specifications or standards, or preclude
company practices, including 2D, and/or drawing-based practices. This needs to be made clear to
our potential users and to WG data model designers. The “QIF Design and Usage Guide”
document is the place for this information.
Requirements - requirements guide the design of the QIF data model and communicate to potential users
of QIF its intended functionality and scope. Current QIF requirements include: list of formal
specifications and standards, use case tables, narrative scenarios, business case scenarios from users.
Currently QIF covers information requirements for ANSI/ASME Y14.5 (1994) with progress to (2009)
in process, DMIS 5.2, and AS9102a First Article Inspection. Discussion raised the question of standards
for consideration and study in the near future including: Y14.45, Y14.41, eAPQP, PPAP, ISO 1101 (ISO
equivalent of Y14.5), Initial Sample Inspection Report (ISIR). A recommendation was expressed that it
would be valuable, if possible, to get acceptance of the QIF data model from the Y14.5 and ISO working
groups.
QMPlans Working Group Meeting
This meeting was moved up in the agenda to ensure that the material was covered on Tuesday.
Chairman Bob Brown covered some history, including roots in the “EQUIPP” effort. He described
recent exposure of QIF designers to levels of MBE capability, the relevance to QIF design, and potential
effects on QIF conformance classes. See http://model-based-enterprise.org/. It was asked if the QIF
activity model was capable of showing the requirement for the different levels of MBE capability.
(Chairman’s after-meeting note: this question relates to QIF design, and reflects the need to effectively
communicate the scope and intent of QIF through good documentation.)
There was brief discussion of “validation” versus “verification” of QIF data files, and how the QIF will
define conformance of software applications. Conformance testing of software solutions that import and
export QIF data may be essential to proliferation of QIF. DMSC has acknowledged this issue, but does
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not have a technical plan in place at this time. In the past, NIST has generated web-based tools for
DMIS conformance testing, and DML file testing.
Discussion of hierarchical vs. relational XML schema design - the QMPlans WG has recently been
considering XML schema design practices. White papers found to be useful can be downloaded from
http://www.exchangenetwork.net/developing-xml-schemas/. The primary issue is “hierarchical vs.
relational schema design”. The quality data practitioners were invited to give some insight to their data
processing techniques, including “under the hood” processing and formatting for data exchange. The
general feeling regarding XML formats for exchange was that a hierarchical schema design is preferred,
as being more interoperable and easier to process. The current QIF XML schema design relies heavily
on grouping like-objects in a data file, and making associations between data objects using reference
pointers (instead of using a nested parent-child element approach). The working groups (WGs) will use
this very valuable insight to review QIF schema design practices.
Discussion included several new use cases as QIF requirements. Generate inspection plans, with some
operations performed on a CMM, and some performed using hand gages was expressed. Also, what if
there is no balloon name? Process very simple parts with no CAD, or even drawings (e.g., a family of
washer parts, where you always measure OD, ID and thickness) - there may be no feature-tocharacteristic reference. Use case: monitoring a temperature (in scope for QIF?).
The meeting was adjourned on Tuesday with the conclusion of the QMPlans WG meeting.
WEDNESDAY, 13 June
IMTS 2012 Demonstration
This topic was addressed out of proposed agenda order due to high interest and high priority. The
discussion was begun, then interrupted to conduct the QCDirectives WG meeting on Wednesday.
Just prior to the QIF meeting, the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) said that they will
offer a ‘gratis’ booth at IMTS 2012 in the Quality area (East building), booth # E-4789. At one time or
another several scenarios have been considered for a public demonstration, for outreach, to validate the
QIF data model, and to test interoperability of prototype software solutions. Scenarios considered have
included: the Lockheed Martin pilot project using a milled part from thin stock, a demonstration of
AS9102a first article inspection report generation, and a Plans and Results interoperability demo based
on a concept introduced by Joe Zink. All were discussed.
Requirements for a demo include that it must be different technically and visually than the 2010 IMTS
presentation. Consideration was given to a well-designed presentation on QIF, focusing on business case
and benefits (and not on technical aspects). Three months from now to the demo is a short time to find
and harness technical resources. C. Leland drew his quality workflow on the easel and explained what
QIF business case benefits were attractive to Deere, and thus potentially useful in a demo.
Discussion was interrupted to ensure that the QCDirectives WG meeting would occur on Wednesday.
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6 attendees committed to contribute to the IMTS demonstration, to include generation and consumption
of QMPlans files, and generation and consumption of QMResults files. A demo working group will
meet via teleconference next week to begin the effort.
QMDirectives Working Group Meeting
Two presentations include most of the material from the meeting, Unicode for GD&T Symbols.pptx and
MBD to QIF.pptx.
The charter of the QMDirectives WG includes: “QMDirectives WG will participate with all relevant
CAD language development groups ... to ensure harmony with other QIF working group content. The
QMDirectives WG will particularly drive “CAD + semantic PMI” efforts, these being so important for
automatic (digital) use of CAD for downstream quality measurement.” “....the QMDirectives WG will
need to join with these efforts (e.g., PLM, MES, ERP, and QMS) so that the information defined is
consistent with downstream requirements for quality measurement.”
Chairman Maggiano started by making his statement that there is a need for a standard unicode encoding
for GD&T symbols. Font mismatches interfere with exchange of quality files - Larry showed an
example. Action Item: The working group approved by consensus that: “the QMDirectives WG
recommends that the DMSC board convey to ASME the recommendation that ASME pursue and
complete a standard unicode symbol set for GD&T.”
Tomasz Luniewski of Capvidia described his company’s capability to convert CAD+PMI (in a variety
of formats – proprietary and standard) to XML Schema for both geometry and PMI, with purportedly no
loss of information. Tomasz also described Capvidia’s work to integrate this capability with a quality
measurement software vendor (PAS Technology), all of which is an important proof-of-concept
demonstration. There was some discussion of the desirability by computer aided quality (CAQ)
practitioners for getting CAD + PMI data in XML format, which is technically more “friendly” than Part
21 files from STEP (especially ISO 10303 AP 242) standards. STEP has an effort to define an XMLbased file format, called Part 28. It was reported that the effort is not yet complete.
Horst reported on progress toward harmonizing with product design activities via interaction with
upstream CAD+PMI standards groups, particularly PDES, Inc., LOTAR, CAx-IF, and STEP AP242. He
described a possible joint effort between PDES Inc, ISO, and DMSC to define the relationship between
AP242, AP239 (Product Lifecycle Support (PLCS)), QIF and AS 9101a (FAI).
A User attendee expressed that QIF should support AIAG’s Production Part Approval Process (PPAP)
specification in order to meet his business requirements. Observation: sample QIF data files should be
posted on the QIF web site for easy access. Question: can we get Brep info in XML format from
upstream processes?
Informal discussions off-line included interest in key performance indicator (KPI) research, and
performance measurement, and real-time process improvement research for both process and product.
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Horst reported on his attendance at the Model-Based Definition (MBD) subcommittee meeting of the
International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG). He had presented the Quality Information Framework
(QIF) effort to the IAQG at their meeting in Wichita, Kansas on June 12, 2012. Horst argued that since
the QIF developers have been defining QIF in harmony with AS9201a, QIF is a logical candidate for a
digital companion of the paper-based AS9102a FAI standard. IAQG is keen on integrating PPAP into
QIF, though they apparently do not have a current effort to digitize AS9102a.
DMSC has no representative on the AP242 committee, to represent QIF CAQ needs. Horst asked for a
volunteer - none stepped forward. Action Item: C. Leland and R. Admire will generate a “needs
statement” describing DMSC/QIF concerns to the AP242 committee.
 A personal recommendation: “The DMSC, for the purpose of QIF demonstration, should
consider adopting an XML-based STEP file format to enable the consumption of solid Brep
and/or PMI data (by CAQ processes). Possibly like what Capvidia has.”
QMResults Working Group Status Report
Rippey gave a 20 minute report on: requirements (current, near-future and to be reviewed), technical
activities covered by the WG in the weekly teleconferences, technical approaches to data model design
and XML schema design, challenges (e.g., broad scope of QIF and of traceability data, need for user
requirements to guide the effort, effort needed for documentation), and strategies for achieving QIF
version 1.0. The material is covered in the file QMResultsStatusReport12June2012.pptx.
It was noted that PPAP is used beyond the automotive sector and thus it is important that the QIF data
model include data to support it. PPAP has not yet been studied by the WG. It will be considered for
inclusion in QIF V1.0.
Next steps include: finish the current AS9102a FAI requirements design effort, progress to QIF version
1.0, participate in the IMTS 2012 demo, complete the pilot project with Lockheed Martin.
IMTS 2012 Demo (continued)
The group discussed issues of processing quality data in XML formats, resources needed, workflow,
time left before the demo. A design finally emerged, based on a drawing by J. Zink and details added by
C. Brown. A brief description of the plan is included below. Bob Brown offered to schedule and host a
Demo Kickoff meeting via teleconference next week.
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Processes and arrows in gray are not in scope for QIF data formats. The CAD+PMI flow may occur in
any manner the software solution can access. By the end of the meeting comittments were made by 6
companies to either generate, consume, or do both, for QIF formatted data. Other companies will
consider getting involved. The likely part is the ANC101 part, for which the QMResults WG has
already generated modest Plans and Results sample XML files.
Input from the group discussion included:
 Business case message is extremely important
 Message: QIF is real, it gives you benefits of: links to your supply chain (both ways - Plans out,
Results back), reduced CAQ processing time. Who is the target audience? (users and developers,
managers primary, implementers secondary).
 Message: Who do you want interpreting inspection results? You or only your suppliers? QIF lets
you convey inspection requirements to suppliers, and allows you and/or your supplier to interpret
results, easily, with no error prone data translation.
 Message: you can replace “old” flow of spreadsheet data with QIF formatted data.
 Message: if you have many CMMs generating results, support of the QIF format enables viewing
all data with a single viewer.
 Objectives: recruit volunteers to QIF development, educate users and developers, promote QIF.
 Is IMTS the best venue for a QIF demo? What are other good venues?
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Ensure there is a big technical demo plan but with a backup booth display (on benefits) plan
Signage: Big flashy sign “QIF V1.0 will be released 30 March 2013!!!!”.
Try to get an unpaid marketing intern, whose reward for effort will be unique learning
experience.
We need to improve on the IMTS 2010 demo
Buttons: “Ask me about QIF”, “QIF - from the folks who brought you DMIS”.
Get commitments from participating vendors to have signs in their company booths “pointing” to
the QIF demo in the DMSC booth, which will be # E-4789.
It is an advantage to be visually appealing, preferably with moving equipment. The idea of
including simulation of CMMs/DMEs on large video screens was offered.
Multi-vendor participation is essential to reinforcing the message of interoperability.
The demo should have non-trivial workflow, processing, business value. It should illustrate
supply chain workflow.
Displays should show logos of companies that are participating, supporting QIF development.
Is it possible to use equipment in other booths, as does MTConnect?
The demo should involve enough testing to progress maturation of the data model.
A good approach is to have a Marketing Team and Technical Demo Team
Finding a PLM provider to participate may improve the workflow.
Souvenir: USB thumb drive with QIF logo containing marketing files, containing XML data files
for processing at remote participant booths?
“You have 5 seconds to get people’s attention.” “Add participant logos to displays for
credibility”
Marketing brainstorms generated primarily by H. Hailu and W. Sobel included:
 Get a DMSC Facebook page – announce IMTS event and demo. Use it.
 visitors “check in” at the booth, friends see that people are there
 Get a LinkedIn account – use it
 Twitter – get DMSC account, ask visitors to tweet about the demo. Use hash tag QIF.
 Drawing – visitors whose badges are scanned are entered in a drawing for a prize – need budget
for a groovy prize (iPod?)
 Seek a marketing intern for above, and booth logistics
 Use DMSC email list to announce the demo and opportunities for social networking (see above).
Use it for the QIF message, not solely for the demo.
 Food/snacks at the booth
 Make signs for vendor booths pointing to the QIF booth (with booth #)
 Post announcement of IMTS/Demo on the QIF website, with booth # E-4789
 “AMT TV slot” – 60 second video competition
 IMTS TV interviews – ongoing broadcast during the show
 Get a speaking slot in a conference room. Emphasize the business case (what problem are we
solving). Announce release date of QIF V1.0
 Hold DMSC marketing meeting – involve vendor participant marketing professionals
 Establish marketing roadmap for our new intern
 Ask companies with periodic newsletters to publicize the QIF demo.
 Make a Wiki page for DMSC QIF. Get a volunteer to monitor it.
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Use the DMSC emailing lists for announcing the IMTS demo and opportunities for social
networking. Use it for the QIF message in general, not solely for demo.
Advertise IMTS 2012 and the demo on the QIF website.
Generate Wikipedia page for QIF – get a monitor person.
THURSDAY, 14 June (half day)
B. Brown demo of prototype FAIR generation using QIF formatted data.
Brown gave a brief overview of a prototype software application he has been experimenting with. It
gathers data from an AS9102a user interface and writes it in XML format. He succeeded in using a
SelectXMLNode method (essentially XPath with no intermediate transform – this is not the XSLT
method , but more “brute force” method to serialize the QIF XML data) to generate a file in QMPlans
format. His comment was that his ability to process XML data without use of extensive software
development gave him confidence that the IMTS demo could accomplish data processing and exchange,
with the time and resources we have.
Summary of QIF Strategy Next Steps Wrapup to the Meeting
 “The QMRules data bucket is empty, e.g., best practices”. This will affect the further
development of QMPlans. Work on the QMRules application area needs to be a high priority.
 All of these efforts are needed for QIF to fulfill its wide scope mission. They are interdependent
to various degrees, and under-development of one can affect other areas. Currently there is no
champion for these areas, and no active working groups:
o QMRules. PAS will check back at HQ for possibly taking a champion role (beginning the
effort of defining the workflow, scope, listing requirements). Action item: Rippey will
send PAS a template for the role of leadership of the QMRules WG. The next phase after
this would be a working group starting to develop the data model, and integrating it with
the QIF library.
o QMResources - need expansion soon, since the data is a subset of inspection plans.
o QMStatistics. Scope is defined in QMS Charter: summary statistics, typically from
multiple parts and features, of quality measurements of dimensional and non-dimensional
entities.
 The QIF XML style guidelines in effect, also called Naming and Design Rules, need to be more
visible, and likely need to be enhanced, to guide working groups in future design, and to guide
software developers.
 The DMSC board/QMDirectives working group will liaise with ASME on GD&T font
 It was felt that NIST should be active in QIF development. Action item: A letter of appeal from
DMSC, including names of endorsing participants, should be sent to the NIST/Engineering
Laboratory chief, Dr. Shyam Sunder.
 Rippey reviewed a draft plan generated several months ago “Plan to Achieve QIF V1.0”. It is a
bare bones list of tasks on a timeline, for DMSC to publish version 1.0 of QIF. With some
variation in scope and requirements, it sketches a 4ish month period to completion. It is likely
that working on the IMTS demo will occupy the members of the QMPlans and QMResults WGs.
A draft strategy would be start working on the plan immediately after the IMTS 2012 demo,
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leading to a projected delivery of QIF V1.0 by 1 March 2013. This strategy will be considered by
the WGs. It was noted that QMPlans.xsd and QMResults.xsd should be released together.
Horst added some additional insight regarding liaison with IAQG: their MBD committee is not
working on digitization of AS9102a, they do want to include PPAP in the requirements for the
next rev of AS9102.
IMTS Demo - it will be advisable to freeze versions of QMPlans.xsd and QMResults.xsd during
demo development. The question of how to move in-booth demo files between processes was
raised: past experience has shown this to be non-trivial. Will Sobel offered that MTConnect has a
file server that facilitates easy file transfer, either via internet access to a global server, or by
emplacement of a local server physically inside the booth.
Next QIF Physical Meeting - suggestion: find a trade show to piggy back on, including Control
(Germany).
The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 am by consensus.
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