According to one recent source, Soviet "outlays for software did not exceed 1.5 to 2 percent of overall outlays for computer hardware."
Glushkov, a founding father of Soviet computer science and a network visionary without peer, wrote his 1979 history of Soviet computerdom without a single mention of networks.
Designers with CAD work stations faced the choice of using generally available but poorly supported subroutines or of developing their own software.
Note especially: CAD, to the extent that it fulfills its promise to optimize the use of materials, reduces the cost of the project and thus also the payment to the design organization which, therefore, has little incentive to use it. !
While the hardware requirements have slowed CAM development in the Soviet Union, the necessary organizational changes, from new job descriptions to a firm's relationship with its suppliers, are perhaps the largest barriers the Soviets will have to surmount for the successful implementation of CAM.
As of early 1987, the Soviets had not solved the problem of providing maintenance and support service to enterprises with CNC machine tools and other advanced manufacturing technology.
When, for instance, the USSR Committee of People's Control conducted a random check of robotization efficiency three years ago, the picture that was revealed staggered even the inspectors who had seen a thing or two before. The economic efficiency of implementation of 600 robots that cost over R10 million was equal to . . . R18,000 a year. And the chance to free up one worker was paid for by ... 14 robots on average!
One final finding of the Leningrad area survey merits mention. In 1983, on average, the computers of the area were out of commission 9.3 percent of a working day, of which more than half was due to technical breakdowns.