How Forge Fits Your Existing Tools

Forge sits around your current software, not in place of it.

In plain terms: Forge does not ask you to replace anything. Your CAD tools still draw the ship and your ERP still runs the yard. Forge is the intelligence layer that wraps around them.

Forge is the layer around your tools

Your yard already runs design and production software. Forge does not compete with it:

Your tool today	What it does	What Forge adds around it
ShipConstructor, AutoCAD, CADMATIC, Rhino	Draw the ship and its 3D model	Reads the model’s measurements and checks them against the rules
NAPA and stability tools	Run engineering calculations	Connects material changes to their effect on stability before purchase
ERP and BOM spreadsheets	Track materials and the yard	Links each material back to the design decision and source that justified it
ABS and USCG rule documents	Define what is legal and safe	Applies the right rule, with a citation, automatically

The strategic principle is simple: Forge becomes the CAD-aware intelligence layer that helps a yard know what is known, what is missing, what changed, which rules apply, what evidence supports a decision, and what needs human approval before a design moves into production.

A phased rollout, not a rip-and-replace

No yard can halt production to overhaul its systems, so adoption is incremental. It starts where the leverage is highest and the risk lowest, and each phase builds the clean data and the confidence the next one needs.

1. Design and bidding

   Start here. Speed up basic design and reuse of prior vessels. Highest payoff, lowest risk.

2. Procurement and compliance

   Add automatic rule and clash checking so conflicts surface before steel is bought.

3. Cross-yard assembly

   Add a shared live model so separate yards stay in sync down to the millimeter.

It starts in observe-only mode

When Forge first arrives at a yard it runs in observe-only mode. The AI drafts and proposes, but nothing it produces is treated as authoritative. This phase lasts at least 90 days. It lets the system learn the yard’s data and lets the yard build trust before any AI output influences a real build.