Seeking compatibility between product data libraries for the furniture industry

Typically company's software tools are modeled in different ways, and have different Import/Export data formats, becoming data communication among them an arduous task (Boissier R., 1995). Provide a set of mechanisms that speed up the integrator's tasks, facilitating the generation of interfaces and avoiding development errors, is important in order to achieve integration results in a competitive time. The use of standards in the modeling process can avoid the development of a high number of interfaces and extend the lifetime of the whole system (Camarinha-Matos, L. 1992). In time, as the commercial tool's builders absorb these standards, the effort needed to keep the global system updated will be reduced, as well as the number of different product data libraries (e.g. product catalogues).