The computer-aided design environment project

Since 1965, the Naval Ship Engineering Center (NA VSEC) and the Naval Ship Research and Development Center (NSRDC), sponsored by the Naval Ship Systems Command, have been actively involved in developing and using computer facilities for the design and construction of naval ships. The overall goals of this effort, known as the Computer-Aided Ship Design and Construction (CASDAC) project, have been twofoldfirst, to achieve significant near term improvements in the performance of ship design and construction tasks, and second, to develop a long term integrated CASDAC system for all phases of the ship design and construction process.! While pursuit of the first goal has achieved notable cost savings,! it has also produced a situation tending to delay the attainment of the second goal, that of an integrated CASDAC system. There soon were many individual batch-oriented computer programs, designed and operated independently of each other, involving relative simplicity, low cost, and short-term benefits, all of which contrasted against the complications, high cost, and projected benefits of an interactive integrated-application system. But yet, it was considered that a quantum improvement in the time and cost of performing ship design could only be realized through a coordinated and integrated approach. The real question facing the Navy was whether such an approach was technically and economically feasible. In an attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of an integrated approach, members of the Computer-Aided Design Division (CADD) and the Computer Sciences Division (CSD) of NSRDC joined with members of the CASDAC office of NAVSEC to investigate and develop a prototype system. The phase of ship design known as concept design was chosen to be modeled as an integrated system and to provide the macrocosm for studying system requirements.