Promoting and facilitating interoperability between components of automatic test systems where test results and/or maintenance actions need to be shared is addressed in this standard. The standard defines the common elements between both test results data and maintenance action data. The common schema becomes a class of information that shall be used within the SIMICA family of standards.

This standard is an implementation-independent specification for a software interface to information systems containing data pertinent to the diagnosis and maintenance of complex systems consisting of hardware, software, or any combination thereof. These interfaces support service definitions for creating application programming interfaces (API) for the access, exchange, and analysis of historical diagnostic and maintenance information.