Ship STEP is the international standard for the exchange of ship modeling data between heterogeneous systems. It is expected that STEP AP218 can be used for seamless data exchange between various CAD/CAM/CAE systems used in the shipbuilding design process. Although the conformance assessment for standards would maximize the performance and confidence about data exchanges, most research has been directed toward interoperability testing. ISO SC4/TC184 only provides the method for conformance testing, and it can be used with test cases on application protocols. Even though standards have been defined for conformance assessment and testing, there is no organization or association. CAD vendors have focused on interoperability testing for evaluation of the performance of their systems. In this paper, the conformance testing criteria for AP218 have been developed with abstract test cases of ship structures. The requested STEP translator was also reviewed with a developed item pool of testing criteria. The criteria methodology would be a guideline for the development of translators and interfaces. The item pool method of testing criteria for conformance assessment would increase performance and efficiency of data translators for Ship STEP and other standards.