Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium held in San Diego, CA on 11-13 Sep 1979.

The ADAGE Interactive Nesting and Drawing System is based on the ADAGE GS/300 Interactive Graphics System and a main host computer. The main computer contains the ship design routines, such as AUTOKON, and the Graphics Display System is used to display individual parts calculated by AUTOKON or to draw new parts as may be required, to visually nest these parts on a sheet meal plate, then to display the tool path required to cut the nested parts layout. This Nesting and Drawing package was first developed two years ago as a feasibility study by ADAGE in Italy for a major Italian shipyard, Italcantieri. Since that time Italcantieri has completed the development to the point that it is scheduled to go into production in July, 1976.

This session centered on the current capabilities of several commercially available graphics systems in parts nesting and computer aided shipyard drafting. Three representatives of graphics system vendors participated on a panel to answer questions from the audience concerning their products' capabilities and graphics systems in general. These representatives were Dr. Robert Cowen of Computervision Corporation. Robert N. Hickox of Adage, Inc. and Lou Melancon of Auto-Trol Corporation. In addition, a representative of the italian yard italcantieri S.p.A. was on hand to relate that yard's experience in the use of Adage equipment for interactive nesting. Of interactive nesting italcantieri, in response to questions from the floor, has seen a reduction in nesting labor as a result of using their system from between 20,00 to 24,000 man-hours per year. He further stated this effort represented the production of some 2500 nest tapes. On the topic of system reliability the vendors reported uptimes for their systems in excess of 95%. The cost of these systems was also questioned. Without a clear description of the application, number of users, etc. of such a system, the vendors were able to respond only that the costs ranged from around $100,000 for a single user drafting system on up. On the topic of computer aided design systems two members of the audience reported on the Navy's development efforts in this area. Two current applications cited in the Navy are a computer aided hull lines generation system employing interactive graphics and a graphics assisted ship's arrangements program.

Computer assisted process planning can be a first step toward the integrated use of computers in the design and manufacturing process to improve productivity in batch manufacturing. The key to the process of integration is a part feature recognition method to analyze and retrieve manufacturing processes and arrive at least-cost designs consistently linked to "best" manufacturing processes. Major problems are incompatible computers, software; and people.

The paper presents a new approach to the problem of nesting of plane parts. The system developed is tailored for nesting of production parts for shipyards, more specifically those prepared by the AUTOKON 71/74 system. However, the general design is believed to be independent of any particular part-coding system or application. Geometrically, the problem of nesting is a two-dimensional one, and it is basically similar to any jigsaw puzzle or two-dimensional cutting-stock problem if one disregards all the application considerations that constrain the solution. The programs developed do not attempt any automatic optimization. The philosophy in designing the system has been that the user is capable of optimizing whatever his objective is, if only the computer is able to supply the appropriate information. Defining and applying the constraints required to do automatic nesting not only becomes difficult, it becomes impossible as constraints on the parts layout change dynamically. The system was developed and is, so far, implemented minicomputers NORD-10 and SM-4. The graphics display on the Norwegian used is a Tektronix 4014-1 storage tube. The system is designed to ease conversion to other computers and graphic displays and to interface to other part generation systems with or without databases.

Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium. Paper No. 25: Integrating Shipyard Design and Manufacturing Functions into an Existing CAD/CAM System.

Ingalls' Production Planning and Control System assists in planning, scheduling, budgeting and tracking each work authorization developed to support the construction of each ship. The system is comprised of modules that have specific functions within the System and some of the modules interface with other modules. At the nucleus of Ingalls Production Planning and Control System is the Consolidated Data Base which provides all data that is required for the other modules.