An announcement from Smart Solutions and SmarTeam Inc. describes a new XML-based technology initiative for product and plant information exchange and enterprise application integration. iXF is an "XML-based industry standard for integrating and exchanging product, plant, or project information throughout Discrete and Process manufacturing enterprises and their supply chains. iXF is an open and extensible standard for transferring data, metadata and related files. The iXF format is designed to provide a simple way for OEMs, parts suppliers, and any participant in the product or plant development chain to exchange information electronically, accurately and securely. As the iXF format is based on XML, it is compatible with a wide array of business data exchange conventions, including Microsoft Corporation's BizTalk and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). It enables the transfer of a self-describing collection of objects and associated files between two systems." iXFuses ZIP as a packaging format, W3C XML Schema language as a schema description format, and SOAP as the encoding format. In addition to objects and files, an iXF file can contain delta-based description of previous revisions of the objects, change tracking information, object hierarchies and relationships, and schemas for the contained objects.

"The iXF format is focused on enabling easy Product Data exchange between the various legacy systems in today's heterogeneous environments, facilitating B2B communication and creating a virtual, seamless partnership. The design of iXF emphasizes simplicity, extendibility in a decentralized manner and reuse of existing standards: (1) ZIP as a packaging format (2) XML as a metadata format (3) W3C XML Schema language as a schema description format (4) SOAP as the encoding format. The iXF standard is designed to be usable in: B2B data exchange, PDM to ERP communication, PDM to PDM communication, BOM Viewer / Editor, Briefcase functionality, and in Database backup."

From the announcement:

Smart Solutions, a Dassault Systemes company and its America's subsidiary, SmarTeam Inc., today announced the creation of a new XML-based industry standard for integrating and exchanging product, plant, or project information throughout Discrete and Process manufacturing enterprises and their supply chains. Backed by Dassault Systemes, the iXF format provides a simple and powerful way for OEMs, parts suppliers, and any participant in the product or plant development chain to exchange information electronically, accurately and securely.

The iXF format is also utilized by SmarTeam and third-party developers as a key component for ERP, CRM and other legacy application integration, and as a basis for a number of new, untethered applications for creating, reading, viewing, updating and deleting product, plant and other related information. The iXF format specification is open and published, and available free of charge. More information can be found at http://www.ixfstd.org.

The iXF format is based on XML, and is compatible with a wide array of business data exchange conventions, including Microsoft Corporation's BizTalk and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). It enables the transfer of a self-describing collection of objects and associated files between two systems. Created by SmarTeam for deployment in its collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions, iXF is most suitable for sharing product and plant item geometry (drawings and CAD models) and product or plant item content (meta data) by transferring data and metadata from one iXF-enabled system to another.