Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium. Paper No. 16: AUTOKON-76/79-An Affordable Implementation on Prime Minicomputers. The version that is about to be implemented on the PRIME mini computer is basically AUTOKON-79 which may be defined as AUTOKON-79 with some improvements as well as several major new features. The very rapid development of the computer industry with steadily falling prices have changed the outlook with respect to computers and their uses. It is presently feasible to use inhouse computers even for very small operations to run the entire AUTOKON system with its present capabilities as well as the developments that are about to be implemented. The traditional way of processing in a batch made with a waiting time for turnaround have given way to an interactive mode of processing where results come much sooner. Gone are also keypunching, job submission, etc. No longer is it necessary to have large number of pages printed out. Output can be examined by means of an editor, i.e. a system program enabling the user to go through print files as well as other files.

REAPS AUTOKON has emerged over the last three years as a valuable production tool in shipbuilding. Having its roots in the AUTOKON-71 System developed by Shipping Research Services (SRS) of Norway, REAPS AUTOKON consists of twelve independent computer programs communicating with a common database.

In the mid 1960's the Computer Aided Ship Design and Construction project office, located in the Naval Ship Engineering Center, was chartered to apply computer aiding techniques to all phases of the naval shipbuilding process. After the aerospace industry's success in developing a productive wiring data system and an in-depth NAVSEC sponsored study at three designated naval shipyards of the cabling/wiring flow process during installation design, it was determined that a similar system should be developed for naval ship design and production. Because there are significant differences between wiring an aircraft and wiring a ship, a direct conversion from one application to the other was ruled out. In 1965 the Westinghouse Electric Corporation was selected to develop a system of computer programs for processing the flow of electrical and electronic cabling/wiring information used in ship construction. This system was to address the entire process of installation design of equipment on board any Navy ship. This included, such functions as cable routing, hanger selection, penetration design, planning and estimating supporting documents and the equivalent of all the necessary wiring plans. The C/W System is now being implemented at Norfolk and Long Beach and is scheduled for implementation in the other naval shipyards. This system is the first of what the author hopes will be a large number of computer aided ship design and construction programs to be developed and implemented by the Naval Sea Systems Command. It is expected that by applying these systems deliberately and diligently in an integrated shipyard modernization program, the total benefits of electronic data processing can be obtained, thus producing a better ship faster and at a lower cost.

The forerunner of the REAPS AUTOKON System was acquired from Shipping Research Services (SRS) of Norway by the Maritime Administration for use in participating U.S. shipyards. Twelve independent computer programs communicating with a common database accomplish various aspects of ship design and construction. Significant modifications have been made to these programs since their initial release to incorporate enhancements, resolve failures, and improve performance. At present, the REAPS Technical Staff maintains several versions of the system. Maintenance for the REAPS AUTOKON System which was previously limited only to the UNIVAC installation versions has been expanded to cover both UNIVAC and IBM installation versions.

There are two general subjects that will be covered in this paper - justification of a computerized mould loft for the small shipyard and implementation. The justification will be brief and figures represented in this portion are not actual figures obtained from Port Weller records, but are superficial numbers used only to give the basic ideas of how the eventual purchase of the Autokon system was justified at Port Weller Dry Docks. The implementation portion will be an actual account of our use of numerical control programming starting from December 1973, when the part and nest programs were first obtained from Shipping Research Services.

Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium. Paper No. 17: Minicomputer Applications for Long Range Planning.

Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium. Paper No. 19: AUTOPART, AUTONEST, AUTODRAW Systems for Interactive Generation of Production Information. This paper describes AUTOPART, AUTONEST and AUTODRAW, a suite of new AUTOKON program for parts definition, nesting, verification and general drafting. They are implemented in interactive graphic technology using a mini computer and a Tektronix 4014 storage tube for communication. AUTOPART and AUTONEST may be used as a stand alone system providing N/C cutting information, partly replacing similar functions of the AUTOKON batch system.