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.

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.

Presentation gives an overview of uses and advantages of computer aided design.

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.

Proceedings of the REAPS Technical Symposium. Paper No. 24: Group Technology and Automated Process Planning, a Change in Management Strategy. The trend toward increased customization is increasing the problems associated with batch manufacturing, both in design and manufacturing itself. Group technology helps to solve these problems and is thus attracting great interest. The benefits of group technology in such applications as design retrieval, design standardization, standardization of machine tool routings, automated process planning, and machine tool investment can bring about dramatic savings in the multibillion dollar manufacturing industry. Three or four years ago, only a handful of companies were interested in group technology. Today, many companies, including a number considered to be highly conservative, are seriously considering or have adopted group technology systems. This increased interest is a reflection of a growing awareness of the potential benefits of group technology, particularly for batch manufacturing. These advantages can apply to both design and manufacturing.

For the last ten years, commercial shipbuilders have had to make frequent and extensive damaged stability investigations. To accomplish this we have developed the program that we are about to describe.

With shipbuilding capacity worldwide well in excess of demand and competition for orders extremely fierce, shipyards must ensure that all resources are used effectively. Each man on the shop floor, each foreman and manager must be able to carry out the work required of him - which means that he must be provided with all the required information on the work to be done and the means to carry it out. The competition for orders, quite apart from resulting in shorter lead times, has resulted in shipyards building a wider range of products than was envisaged even a short time ago. The potential. variety of individual operations within a shipyard in this situation is much higher than in the case of a single product facility. The information channels used in this production system are similarly going to require greater capacity, speed and accuracy. SPCS is a flexible and uncomplicated approach to production control, aiming to supplement management rather than to replace management decision making by black-box decision rules. It consists of a set of inter-tied modules, each of which is executed either manually or by batch computer processing or on-line, depending on local circumstances.