CADDManager on June 1st, 2011
This entry is part 8 of 11 in the series Seven Functions of a CAD Manager

The technology in which your firm invests must give your firm an advantage against others. Your firm spends its money on technology that improves the bottom line.  It may also investigate technology that might push them to the front of the tech curve.

You are the first line of defense against lagging performance of the technology you use.  You may not be the first one to notice that things are not working as well as they used to, but you may be the best person to get things back on track.

Software:

Invest in the best your firm can afford.  This may seem obvious,but some firms go the cheap route.  I understand the need to stay within a budget, but you need to move them toward better/newer software if you can.

Once you have the software, make sure it is stalled and configured to give your team maximum performance.  This is an original setup issue and also a fine tuning effort. Make sure that the end user does not modify firm wide standard that you have built into the menus and such. Reset them back to standard installs if you find them getting creative.

Customize your software as far as you need to in order to gain more speed and efficiency.  Check out my list of what needs to be customized and how to approach it.  Don’t go overboard.  Read that post.

Hardware:

Again – buy the best you can afford.  Move the older machines into other areas that are not as power hungry as CAD and BIM.  When you buy new hardware give it to your best team members.  Making them faster will improve the firm.

Maximize the hardware you have by adding more RAM or updating the OS.  This can get you more speed and cost less than a new machine.

Control the synchronization  of software and hardware:

Check the requirements for hardware as you move to newer software. It is more demanding than the old stuff and you do not want to put software on a machine that just cannot handle the load.

 

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