Manufacturing companies looking to develop new products faster aren't the only ones that have become true believers in the potential of online design collaboration. Some of the largest professional-services firms are recent converts as well.

EDS spent more than $1 billion last year on acquisitions to create a division for design collaboration and other product life-cycle-management services in October. Other consulting firms are making their own plans: Andersen is putting more emphasis on a partnership with Parametric Technology Corp. by making the company's Windchill collaborative-design software part of its pitches for manufacturing and collaborative-design services.

EDS bought Structural Dynamics Corp. for about $950 million last year and bought out Unigraphics Solutions, which it had partially owned for 10 years. EDS sees a growing demand for engineers and product designers to exchange digital design plans and manufacturing information via local networks and the Internet, says Chris Will, a director with EDS's new Product Lifecycle Management group. And EDS doesn't think it will stop there. Once that information is available digitally, the firm envisions that data being used in many downstream processes, such as marketing or service and repairs.

EDS has made design collaboration a key ingredient in its TeamCenter suite of applications. Companies such as Ford, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman have signed up. At the core of TeamCenter is an Oracle database that serves as a data repository that designers can access via the Web using open standards such as Sun Microsystems' Java 2 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft .Net. TeamCenter facilitates collaboration in model visualization, requirements, design, development, project management, and manufacturing.

Los Angeles aerospace company Northrop Grumman is using EDS's technology to help Lockheed Martin develop the joint-strike fighter, a project, worth up to $200 billion, to create one jet-fighter model for the entire U.S. military. The company employs TeamCenter, called Unigraphics Metaphase before the EDS buyout, and Catia by French software developer Dassault Systemes to help designers worldwide make changes to designs and share them with co-workers and partners. "When you think in terms of return on investment, you've got to factor in what it means for a company to have design data available immediately," says David Torchia, Northrop Grumman's product data management practice manager. "I don't have to contact individual designers, and I'm not digging through microfiche files or playing phone tag."

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