CALS technologies and tolerant translators

Application of the CALS technology at the national enterprises and the problems of translation of one data format to another were considered. Emphasis was laid on the close relation between the translators for various programming languages and convertors of different data formats. It was shown that a great deal of convertors, $N(N-1)$, is required when using multiple computer systems and applied software packages at various stages of the product life cycle. If there exists a universal data format such as that of the exchange file of the international STEP standard, then the number of convertors required drops down to $2N$. An attempt was made to substantiate the possibility of designing the so-called tolerant universal data converter based on the tolerant translation and the binary tolerance relation. The main principles and rules of tolerant translation as applied to the convertors were presented, and the structure of the tolerant converter was described.