Computer graphics: An assembly line for information

The growing disparity in productivity between manufacturing and engineering design activities suggests that “software” systems—in which information is organized to produce instructions—must adopt some of the disciplines that have been fruitful in the “hardware” systems—where materials are organized to create products. Developments at Ford toward measuring elements of the design task, detailed planning and organizing of the engineering process at its inception, and elimination or acceleration of the iterative process characteristic of the “scientific method” are discussed in this context. Particular attention is given to the importance of computer graphics and its use with a time‐shared computer system as communication and storage means—the beginnings of an “assembly line” for information.