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Replies to reasons 60-64. These replies are all short and sharp, and give little justification. The message is apparently not only that the person is not interested in EDM/PDM, but doesn't even want to continue the discussion. Sometimes the answer can be taken at face value, but it may be that the brief rejection covers hidden reasons. Perhaps the manager doesn't have time to talk to you about EDM/PDM. Alternatively, the manager may have a little time available, but be afraid that your EDM/PDM presentation is so badly prepared that you are going to waste valuable management time. Make sure your presentation is concise, well organized, and addresses the business factors that are of concern to the manager. If appropriate, send the manager a note asking for a meeting. The note should outline the purpose of the meeting, its content, the expected result and the benefit for the manager. Some managers will claim that EDM/PDM doesn't apply to them. This may well be true, in which case you should ask which other managers they recommend you should talk to about EDM/PDM. However, it may be that EDM/PDM does apply to the manager but he/she is either not aware of it, or is trying to avoid it. If it's a question of lack of awareness, prepare a brief presentation (two or three pages) for the manager and either discuss it in a short meeting, focusing on the advantages for the manager, or send it to them. If the manager is trying to avoid EDM/PDM, try to get a meeting that will focus on the business advantages of EDM/PDM for the manager, and identify potential EDM/PDM users. Replies to reasons 65-66. These replies do not clearly reject EDM/PDM. They imply the manager has taken a rational decision that other topics are more important than EDM/PDM. What you need to do is to get EDM/PDM included in the 'other topics'. Find out which topics are seen as more important. Understand the problems that are being addressed by these topics. Show how EDM/PDM can help solve the problem, or increase the benefits of other solutions that are proposed. Replies to reason 67. This is a clear rejection of EDM/PDM and is the most difficult to deal with. Find out why the person is so sure they don't need EDM/PDM. Understand how EDM/PDM could help them. Prepare the case to present EDM/PDM, but hold back for several months. In the meantime, look to see who else might be a candidate for EDM/PDM. Roles change, and, given time, recognition of needs may change. Replies to reasons 68-70. Although the manager is giving a reason for not doing EDM/PDM, a lot of room is being left open for further discussion. An admission of not understanding EDM/PDM leaves the way open to a proposal to increase EDM/PDM awareness. A reply indicating an inability to see the need for change should be met with a reasoned outline of the need for change, and a proposal to demonstrate the way EDM/PDM supports such change. Assigning the responsibility for the decision to an advisor may just be a way of avoiding the blame, or it may be intended to open up a discussion with the advisor. This could lead on to increasing the advisor's EDM/PDM awareness, and demonstration of the benefits of EDM/PDM. Reply to reason 71. Trying to put all a company's engineering information into an EDM/PDM system in one bite is a sure way of creating problems. It's much better to start by putting in the data for a particular project, and then gradually expand the amount and type of data managed by the system. It will probably be many years before all the data is in the system, but at all times the system will be of use. Reply to reason 72. Today's EDM/PDM systems follow the rules they get from people in the Engineering department. They can be run with an audit trail to show who did what, and why the system acted in a certain way. Reply to reason 73. Techniques have been developed to recover from system crashes. These can be applied to an EDM/PDM system to make sure that it is possible to recover from a system crash. Virus detection programs can be loaded to make sure viruses are discovered before they can corrupt the system. Reply to reason 74. Once information has been notified to the EDM/PDM system it's just as difficult to lose track of it as it is to lose track of information in a manual engineering data management system. Replies to reasons 75-77. Current EDM/PDM systems are not as intelligent as human beings. They are only aware of the information about the company and its history that is specifically fed to them. For many years to come, people who have spent a long time in a company will be able to outperform EDM/PDM systems in many ways. On the other hand, for simple, repetitious, boring activities that relate to information known to the system, the system will outperform human specialists. Replies to reasons 78-80. When an EDM/PDM system is implemented, there is a very long transition phase between the old 'all-manual' data management system and the future 'all-electronic' environment. For many years, there will be occasions when the system does not come up to the expected performance level. There will be many occasions when data is not available in electronic form when it is needed - as a result it will have to be made available on paper. There will be occasions when the system will fail to find data because someone has forgotten to enter that data. As a result the system may seem slow and not very useful. During this period, human specialists will need to work with the system, understanding why it does not work in a particular case, providing information and making up for its deficiencies. During this period, the company will be paying for both the system and the humans. However the service should be much better and as time goes on, the human component should gradually diminish. There will be many opportunities for those of today's data management specialists who have the skills to adapt to the new electronic environment. |