This paper presents a Kohonen neural net parallel simulator. The simulator was developed on a Sequent Balance 8000 computer system. Comparative results emphasize the impact of the different strategies of parallelization, the number of processors involved and inter-processor communications over the efficiency of the parallel implementation. The simulator was used in a pattern recognition application, in the automatic synthesis of a neuro-fuzzy classifier. The results obtained in the neuro-fuzzy classifier synthesis and in the classification process are presented. Some further work proposals, the discussions and the conclusions complete the paper.