CAD Management

In the last installment, I made the case that CAD managers are becoming increasingly responsible for the logical organization and distribution of CAD information within their organizations. As CAD drawings become an ever-richer repository of design information, it only stands to reason that more people around the enterprise will want access to that data.

As a CAD manager, you have your hands full maintaining software and hardware and keeping users productive. Sometimes this day-to-day firefighting keeps you from noticing trends that might shape your job in the future. So starting this month, we’ll be examining some of the trends that you should at least be aware of.

If you’re a CAD manager (or any other manager for that matter), every year you have to create a budget for your department’s operation. How you construct that budget and justify it to management—not necessarily what that budget contains—determines how successful you’ll be in getting it approved.

This month I'm recommending that you remove your technologist hat and spend some quality time developing a plan to beef up your managerial skill set.

In this article we'll examine some tasks you may want to prepare for and discuss some methods you can use to excel and make your CAD management career more rewarding.

Say the word budgeting in a room full of CAD managers and watch the facial expressions turn painful. While budgeting may not be the most fun thing you do as a CAD manager, it is necessary.

If a new CAD application can save your company time and money, how do you know how much? How do you summarize your cost and savings so that management can see that you've done your homework?

As a CAD manager, you need more than just software tips and tricks; you need some management tricks as well, and Robert Green has more than a few of those up his sleeve. Will he pull a quarter out from behind your ear? Probably not, but he will show you how a few simple managerial practices can help you stay ahead of the game.