Journeying across the pond to Ottawa, Canada, members of the Granta Design Restrictive Substances team participated in a committee meeting to discuss the IPC-1754 (“Materials Declaration Standard for Aerospace and Defense”) standard. Arising out of an initiative by the International Aerospace Environmental Group (IAEG), the IPC-1754 standard establishes requirements for material and chemical substance data exchange between suppliers and their customers for aerospace and defense, heavy equipment, and other such industries.
A ballot held at the committee meeting ended with 80% approval for the standard. Although it is now approved, the committee has accepted the standard has some technical issues that need to be addressed. This will trigger a re-ballot during the summer, which will concern areas where technical changes have been made to address comments. It is expected that the standard will be published on schedule in late October-December 2017.
Collaboration
Granta’s participation in these discussions came in part to our role as a coordinator of PLEIADES. For those unfamiliar with it, PLEIADES is a collaborative project within Clean Sky 2, the European program to enable environmental improvements in next-generation aircraft. It aims to integrate and ensure effective use of both primary and secondary data on materials, processes, and products within aerospace engineering workflows.
Within PLEIADES, Rolls-Royce acts as Topic Manager to ensure that objectives surrounding ‘Sustainable and Green Engines’ are met. Together with thinkstep, a specialist in sustainability software, Granta has the role of Project partner, and further expertise comes from the University of Stuttgart, and the University of Surrey.
Welcome to the third in our series in which we meet the Granta team. We spoke with our colleague Rhys to find out everything, from what he most enjoys about being a Software Tester to which historical figure provides him with a daily dose of inspiration. We’re always looking for like-minded individuals who have passion and drive to make positive changes to our software development; take a look at our 
Successful products require Engineers and Designers to collaborate, often around materials choices: balancing performance with aesthetics for the ideal product experience. Engineering curricula don’t always recognise the importance of this connection. Engineers and Designers get only a limited understanding of each other’s work, while Materials is often an under-appreciated subject. Cambridge Engineering Professor,