The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA, was e
stablished at the end of 1972 as a joint creation of countries from bo
th East and West. IIASA is a nongovernmental, multinational autonomous
scientific institution, founded for the purpose of research into prob
lems which are either global (knowing no frontiers) or universal (appl
ying to all nations), and into the application of systems analysis to
their solution. IIASA is situated at Schloss Laxenburg, near Vienna, A
ustria, and scientists from all the member nations work together on va
rious research projects, some of which tackle specific problem areas,
and others of which develop methodologies in a general context. Early
in 1974, the industrial-systems project identified computer-aided desi
gn as a developing technology which would be likely to influence the d
evelopment of industry considerably. in collaboration with the compute
r-systems project, the industrial-systems project commissioned a world
-wide survey of CAD. The survey covers many countries in both Eastern
and Western Europe, and includes the USA and Japan.