Order – Principles of CAD Management

Order.

Most people like things to be orderly. Even those that are more free wheeling have some order in most areas of life. We are forced to be orderly in many ways by the things we interact with on a daily basis. Get in line, take your turn,do this first, then that…

Henri Fayol (see this post) thought that every person and every part should have a place. A place for everything and everything in its place.  Further he thought that every person and the material they needed to get their job done should be in the right place at the right time.

The CAD Manager should attempt to put the right people (the most advanced users) on the right projects at the right time.

Here is what I mean.  The CAD Manager usually knows who the best users are.  He or she also knows what projects are having troubles.  She or he also knows when the most critical time to avoid problems are on projects – at the beginning.

CAD Managers should pay attention to when projects start and who is assigned to work on them.  They should try to get a good user on the project at the start.  In fact, I think that the CAD Manager should have a “tiger team” to get projects started off correctly.  This team would be given some time to set up a project and to get the model and files set up correctly.  Sometimes the CAD Manager is the one that sets up project directories but then they are not give time (or have the time) to get the files set up so that all  things are done in an orderly manner.

Convincing the PM to allow the time and team to be applied as needed can be tough, but the rewards can be rewarding.