This article is the first of a small cycle devoted to CALS technologies, in which I will try to understand what it is and what they eat. How many will be, I don’t know myself, maybe only one, and if people like it, maybe all ten.

What is CALS technology.

Wikipedia helpfully tells us that this is a comprehensive and comprehensive technology to support the product life cycle. The goal of CALS implementation is to minimize costs during the product life cycle, improve its quality and competitiveness. And what is it and generally how it all began?

A little background.

History, in any case, its official part tells us that at first a person lived in trees and did not bother about anything but himself. He ate fruits and vegetables, sometimes he ate his neighbors. After some time, we see him running through forests and fields, hunting wild mammoths, fighting with neighbors who do not want him to have a snack.

After some time, he was already hoeing the earth, digging irrigation canals, and again fighting with his neighbors, but for fertile land. In general, settling down on this planet in full. And what did he do? He had some tools and weapons. All of this was initially entirely manufactured independently. This is a personal production. Subtleties of production passed from generation to generation, gradually improving the methods of production.
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Then people noticed that some of them know how to produce some things better than others. And the dialogue became typical:

- Petrovich, make me, please, a plow or a spear as you can, and I will stick clay with you according to an old family recipe or I will bast.
- Hey, Ivanovich, I will.

These Petroviches and Ivanyshes began to be called artisans. They specialized in something. We went to the "conference" to share experiences, elicited other people's secrets and followed their own. So began to develop handicraft production.

A little more time passed, and we see, at the beginning of the manufactory, then the factories and plants engaged in the production of all sorts of different products. More complex machines and systems are being used. This is industrial production. Depending on the volume, it happens: small batch, medium batch and large batch.

The farther we produce, the more complex things we produce and more and more. Production becomes not only laborious, but also knowledge-intensive.
In the end, we begin to come to a paradox - high-technology becomes too laborious (pun, but I like it). And, the further, the worse. Somewhere in this place there is an idea to use automation, including computer.

How to solve the problem of labor intensity in high technology.

Can be viewed from two sides:

1. Too big streams of information, that is, we simply can’t analyze it, coordinate with each other and present it in the right form within a reasonable time. A number of steps have been taken to solve this problem.
   
   Since the mid-60s of the 20th century, the first CAD systems , automated process control systems , automated process control systems , automated process control systems, etc. have been developed and implemented. These were autonomous software modules that, if possible, automated the hard work of engineers.
   
   In the late 70s of the 20th century, flexible production systems began to appear, the main feature of which was the presence of a computer system uniting separate processes within the enterprise.
   
   In the late 80s of the 20th century, computerized integrated production appeared in which the unified information environment, unified databases and production standards were used.
   
   In the middle of the 80s of the 20th century, an understanding emerged that the life of a product outside the enterprise does not end, but only begins. There are systems that support the life cycle of the product.
   
   The first to understand it was the American warriors. They hoped that through the use of such systems, they would very well save on weapons production (which is why I spoke in prehistory and spears and snacks neighbors). In principle, the way it happened, and the technology got life. Integrated information environments have appeared (not to be confused with intelligent information environments).
   
   
2. Too much documentation.
   
   A small digression. Admit how many packs of paper a day do you feed a printer, a copier, and a shredder? And then we say that some bad people cut down entire forests. At one time, the Pentagon considered the possibility of heating in the winter of its premises by burning unnecessary documentation made during the day. One more example. The volume of documentation for 1 (!) Ship takes 9 (!) Railway cars! In general, the volume of paper documentation exceeds all permissible limits. Previously, to solve these problems, there were whole “scientific research institutes” that were engaged in “shifting papers”. But it is necessary to exploit somehow. In addition, it is very difficult to alter errors in the documentation, the removal of which takes a lot of time and effort.
   
   The first thing that comes to mind is that it is natural to use electronic documentation, electronic drawings,, electronic document management, and so on. The people went further in solving the problem. They invented such a thing as formalized information models describing products from the side. In integrated systems, they are specialized information objects. They immediately tried to standardize, so there was no overlap in the future. In the simplest case, one of the options may be a parameterized drawing.
   
   For example, you are engaged in the production of gears, the customer comes to you and says that he needs a different number of teeth on the gear, another material, a different tooth profile. In the usual case, you need to make a new drawing, reconfigure the machines and so on. Having such a model, you simply set the necessary parameters, and then everything happens in a more or less automated form.
   
   A real example: ordering options for cars in a fairly wide range. In some projects, the production is “dark”, that is, there is simply no lighting at the plant - there are no people there, and if there is, it is only to service the broken equipment. That is, it turns out savings on almost everything.

PS
If it will be interesting to you, in the following times I will briefly tell you:

• about the basic concepts and technologies in the field of CALS;
• about implemented and currently implemented projects;
• about where it was taught and teach;
• where it was designed and developed;
• about basic principles;
• about standards: You will learn something interesting, and for someone even new HTML;
• about the main stages of the product life cycle and how it all works;
• and, if, for once, I have enough strength and patience, then I will smoothly turn to software engineering and try to compare the approaches.