Truck manufacturer Freightliner and Spatial Inc., a developer of Web-hosted engineering services, have agreed to offer Freightliner's proprietary Web-based design and engineering software commercially.
The internally-developed technology streamlines the processing, transmission and tracking of 3-dimensional design data through a digital manufacturing supply chain.
Freightliner's technology provides automated Internet-based communication of design data from manufacturers to their divisions and suppliers. It allows for customized creation and selection of recipients; each transaction made is extensively logged. Notification of job completion is e-mailed to recipients and the original dispatcher, and all outgoing/incoming data is automatically archived.
A new service based on the Freightliner technology will be commercially available to other manufacturers in the third quarter of 2000.