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Reply to Reason 23. We understand that the main priority of the Engineering Department is developing products. An EDM/PDM system would help you manage your projects better and reduce unnecessary engineering overhead. As a result you will be able to spend more time developing products, and develop them more effectively. In turn this will mean fewer design faults in new products, so less rework, and more time for developing new products. EDM/PDM is a win-win for the Engineering Department. Reply to Reason 24. Engineers will accept something that will help them do what they like doing. Why not give it a try? Reply to Reason 25. EDM/PDM is not Big Brother. It is a tool to help users get the right data when they want it - instead of wasting their time and then getting the wrong data. Reply to Reasons 26 and 27. Few CAD systems manage data well. They were developed to help people design products, and most of the effort went into developing functions that directly aid the design process. Most CAD systems only have data management functionality to manage the data they produce. EDM/PDM systems have been developed specifically to manage engineering data produced and used in many systems. Reply to Reason 28. In principle, an EDM/PDM system (or systems) could manage all the company's data. However, to be useful, an EDM/PDM system doesn't have to manage all the data. It just has to manage some of the Engineering Department's data more effectively than existing manual data management systems. Reply to Reason 29. An EDM/PDM system carries out uninteresting and repetitive work. It doesn't replace creative engineers. It allows them to do the development work they want to do. Reply to Reason 30. Experience shows that response times of well-implemented EDM/PDM systems are reasonable. They are much shorter than response times from manual data management systems. Reply to Reason 31. EDM/PDM is a technology that will help the company significantly improve its overall performance. Until it is included in the overall IT master plan, we will run it in prototype mode on our 'other expenses' budget. Reply to Reason 32. EDM/PDM technology has been under development since the mid-1980's. It has passed through the phase in which it could only be used in research mode, and can be used in everyday operations. Reply to Reason 33. During the fast growth phases of a technology, there will always be some vendors salespeople who have not fully understood the technology. This does not mean that there is anything wrong with the technology. Reply to Reason 34. Many EDM/PDM systems run on relational database systems. The development work that EDM/PDM vendors carry out builds additional functionality, specifically to handle engineering data, on top of the existing relational data management functionality. Thousands of development person-years have gone into some EDM/PDM systems. As a result they contain a lot more functionality for handling engineering data than a basic relational database management system. Reply to Reasons 35 to 37. The IS Department must work together with users in other departments if it is to succeed. The IS Department is ideally qualified to look after some parts of EDM/PDM. Other departments are better qualified for other parts. The IS Department has to understand the business needs of users and of the company, and then look for corresponding solutions. In previous decades, the IS Department and its computer vendor could identify new technologies, and then look for potential applications within the company, but in today's world, it's more important to solve existing needs than to create new systems for which there is no real demand. Reply to Reason 38. The Engineering Department welcomes the opportunity to work closer together with Marketing. We expect the impact of our use of EDM/PDM on Marketing to be minor. We know we need to improve our Customer Focus, so we will support the introduction of Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and we look forward to working closely with Marketing on that. Reply to Reason 39. One of the main reasons for the introduction of EDM/PDM is to allow the Engineering Department to get control of the information released to its customers. In the past, there have been some problems in this area, and these were due to the lack of a tool to fully control the interface. We now have this tool - EDM/PDM. To ensure that it does not create extra problems for Manufacturing, we will install EDM/PDM in several phases. Initially we will run a prototype of EDM/PDM within the Engineering Department. Only when this is successful will we address the link to Manufacturing. We would like people from Manufacturing to be involved with this prototype so that they can learn about the system, and then help us to develop the interface with Manufacturing. Reply to Reason 40. EDM/PDM will help improve the quality of the information available in the field. In the past, manual systems have been used to control engineering information. These systems have been overwhelmed by the increasing amount of data needed to support extensive customization of products. The introduction of EDM/PDM in the Engineering department will help to regain control of engineering information. Once EDM/PDM has been successfully implemented in the Engineering department, it will be possible to extend its use to other departments. |