Abstract: Discussed in the article are the main aspects of CAD process design system for cold-drawn steel tubes, including application, structure and method for designing, With the combination of advantages of the retrieval mode and those of initiative mode and utilization of the expert technology and group technology to software designing, the said newly developed CAD system is of rather high practical applicability and intelligent level. The system has been now utilized for steel tube production. The authors also emphasize the key issues which need to be dealt with carefully in developing a CAPP system.