So at the end of the day, they have gone through many design iterations of the part, and they have a design they're pretty confident will work. Another relatively recent advance, the capability to create the design in a mathematical representation called solid modeling, also is pushing the advance of online and networked applications, Crabb added. A computerized solid model provides a crisp, clear view of the product design, suitable for passing to manufacturing engineers and marketers within the engineering company, he said. Over the network. Many companies will find themselves taking advantage of the Internet or of an intranet, which, when coupled with a firewall or with encryption methods to ensure confidentiality, can act as a private network for company employees to communicate back and forth, or to communicate with vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers.
Solid models use large numbers of bits, which are the smallest units of data in a computer.
The sheer number of bits that make up a model slows transmission across a network. But that is changing rapidly as bandwidth grows, Crabb said. When Crabb worked at Ford in the late 1980s, he had a hand in the company's implemen-tation of a proprietary network that could move information very quickly between computers. Ford's network, which doesn't reside on the Internet, is built for speed. It moves a solid representation of a whole car from computer to computer in less than one second, Crabb said.