Visual Basic ResourcesIf you manage non-AutoCAD–based tools, you’ll need to make the leap to Visual Basic.Just as with AutoLISP, the question becomes, “What’s the best way to get started
Trang 1If you’d like to sell management on your value and educate them about whatyou’re up to, what should you do? You should educate them with the right types ofreports so they understand what you’re doing, and let them draw their own conclu-sions about how valuable you are based on what you accomplish Find ways to keepmanagement in the loop using the most economical reporting format you can—more
on that in the sidebar that follows
Writing a Brief Weekly Report
Time consumed per week: 20 minutes—usually two 10-minute sessions evenly spaced throughout
the week
Time saved per week: At least an hour.
Even if your manager doesn’t require you to write a weekly report, I highly recommend that youwrite one anyway, if for no other reason than to foster better communication of your value to theorganization I’ve used a brief weekly report format with great success over the years because itaffords me the following benefits:
• It summarizes what I’ve achieved in the current week
• It summarizes what I hope to achieve in the following week
• It serves as a checklist that I can use to make sure I’m staying on track
• It shows management that I’m on top of the details and have a plan
• It allows me to keep an open dialogue with my management team because they alwaysknow what I’m doing and what I’m thinking—even if the only contact they have with me in
a given week is reading my report
Get in the habit of writing a weekly report, and it’ll seem easy in just a few weeks.You’ll beamazed how well you can track your job using old reports and how much more on the radar you’ll
be with management!
Trang 2misperceptions exist is precisely because most CAD managers don’t report to their
management in a format that is easy for senior management to understand Not doing
so only makes it harder to sell yourself
Documenting ROI
Now that you’re speaking better, writing better, and selling your value to management
better, how can you use business logic to seal the deal? The answer to this question is
to use the return on investment (ROI) metrics I covered in Chapter 7, “Understanding
Financial Processes" to quantify your value
Figure 10.6 To really get your management’s attention document all your ideas with ROI driven spreadsheets to drive
home the points you speak and write about
The key aspects of any ROI-based approach are to compute the savings you erate and then divide those savings by your cost For the CAD manager, the approach
gen-requires three steps as presented here:
Compute savings Begin by asking yourself questions like these:
How much productivity did you create by implementing smart new technologysolutions? (An hour gained is an hour saved.)
How many processes did you streamline? (Saving steps typically saves time.)How much wasted time were you able to cut? (Cutting waste = savings.)
Trang 3Compute costs You can now compute your cost by collecting the following data:
Annual salary or total hourly pay per yearAmount of any bonuses or profit sharingValue of benefits (typically 25% of salary)Percentage of time you do CAD management on overhead (unbillable time)Percentage of time you spend as an engineer, architect, and so on on billableprojects
Total your costs, take a percentage equal to your time spent CAD managing on head, and you’ll have your final cost number
over-Compute your ROI Take your savings and divide by your costs to achieve an
ROI number If your return on investment is higher than 1 (or 100%), then you’remore than paying for your time as CAD manager, and you can tout that fact tomanagement
Maximizing Your ROI
Now that you’ve got a handle on computing your ROI, the challenge becomes drivingyour ROI as a CAD manager ever higher You know that ROI is a matter of achievingmaximum cost savings at minimum costs The following strategies tend to work well:
Drive up savings Do this by looking for great savings ideas, implementing them, and
taking credit for the savings This is easier to say than do, but if you don’t focus onsavings, you’ll never increase your ROI
Drive down costs Because you can’t lower your salary or benefits, the only way to
lower your cost profile is to make CAD management part of job-billable expenses.Rather than doing CAD management as an overhead activity, go to the staff in yourcompany and find out what sort of CAD-management services they view as valuableenough to charge to jobs Make job-billable CAD management your priority
Once you have a high ROI and low overhead, it’s time to ask your boss for araise After all, you’ve not only earned it, you’ve proven it!
Trang 4Learning Programming
When you make your living supporting users and CAD programs, sometimes it’s useful
to be able to program custom solutions to facilitate greater user productivity That way,
you don’t have to live with what a CAD program gives you; you can customize it to do
what you need I’ve worked with some CAD managers who had little programming
experience who were great CAD managers These people typically have such a great
range of experience and knowledge of the company they work in that they can head off
problems before they happen Even though they can’t program in AutoLISP or Visual
Basic for Applications (VBA), they can provide great support for CAD users
I’ve also worked with CAD managers who could program any solution you care
to dream up but who were barely passable in their job function In many cases, the
person was so involved with programming that they let everyday concerns like filing
systems or work deadlines slip Another key correlation seems to be that the more you
like to program, the less likely you are to be out of your office interacting with CAD
users and designers (and believe me, upper management notices) My hunch is that
pro-grammers aren’t seen as being particularly outgoing or strong in people skills, which
keeps them from being promoted as readily
Figure 10.7 Programming offers you the chance to make the CAD systems you manage do what you want instead
of being at the mercy of the software companies Interested? You should be!
Trang 5I’ve noticed that people who can manage to understand the company’s business,
provide solid support, possess people skills, and create programs are seen as gold mines
in the CAD-management field I should point out that the programming skills you canaim for don’t have to be developer level but can include basic menu-file editing andlimited amounts of AutoLISP (for customizing AutoCAD environments) A little goes along way toward programming real time savings into your CAD system
In work environments where you have to do more with less and drive tivity to new levels, what better way to do this than to roll up your sleeves and homecook a solution using your own programming? I continue to believe that the moretechnical you are, the brighter your future is; and programming literacy is clearly a keycomponent in being more technical
produc-Visual Basic and AutoLISP
The question I usually get from a CAD manager goes like this: “Should I be learningVisual Basic?” The answer I give generally goes like this: “Probably, but let me qualify
my answer a little.”
Most CAD systems today—including SolidWorks, Solid Edge, MicroStation, andeven some of Autodesk’s non-AutoCAD solutions such as Revit and Inventor—offer aVisual Basic customization interface None of these support AutoLISP I think the sig-nals are clear that Visual Basic is becoming the most universally applicable CAD pro-gramming language It’s unavoidable that CAD managers who wish to customize theirinstallations should start ramping up on Visual Basic as soon as possible
I don’t see Visual Basic knowledge as an absolute requirement yet, becauseplenty of effective CAD managers don’t program; but knowing Visual Basic will mostdefinitely be a big plus—so why wait?
strides in their CAD installation
productivity matters into their own hands.The percentages of CAD managers I talk to who use AutoLISPand/or Visual Basic is at 65 percent and rising slowly but steadily If you’re not programming, you’re in the minority
Trang 6AutoLISP Resources
If you manage an AutoCAD-centric CAD environment with DWG-based products (like
Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Land Desktop, Mechanical Desktop, and so on), then
the AutoLISP language will give you an easier point of entry into programming than the
more complex, event-driven Visual Basic development environment
The question becomes, “What’s the best way to get started learning AutoLISP?”
The important conclusion I’ve come to over time is that the method you use to learn
should fit your learning preference (which we examined earlier in this chapter) and
acknowledge your current level of programming expertise
Here are some recommendations I’ve found to be well received over the years:
Those with no programming experience It’s hard to find training in AutoLISP, but the
search will be worthwhile I highly recommend taking training from an experienced
programmer, even if it’s an informal tutoring type of arrangement You may do better
working with a tutor a few hours at a time than in a classroom style class anyway
AutoLISP is straightforward as long as you have someone to walk you through the
intimidating process of getting started I’ve seen few people learn AutoLISP without
some help
Those who know a programming language You may be able to get started using
online AutoLISP resources (search the Internet for various blogs because the list is
constantly changing) A search on Amazom.com will show you several available books
about AutoLISP that you may find useful as well I personally used AutoLISP in Plain
English by George Head to solidify my AutoLISP knowledge, but the book is out of
Those with some AutoLISP experience Another learning strategy is to periodically hire
a consultant or instructor to provide a few hours of tutelage when you hit plateaus in
your learning curve As you struggle through self-study, you’ll build up a list of
ques-tions that a tutor can help you resolve to get you on the way toward more learning
Because you already have some expertise, you should be able to work with a tutor via
the Internet or phone to keep costs down
No matter who you are Learning AutoLISP doesn’t happen on its own; it requires work
and persistence on your part No matter what your skill level or learning strategy is,
the best thing you can do to facilitate learning is to get started Starting now means
you’ll have a great new skill that much sooner
on eBay
Trang 7Visual Basic Resources
If you manage non-AutoCAD–based tools, you’ll need to make the leap to Visual Basic.Just as with AutoLISP, the question becomes, “What’s the best way to get started?”Again, as with AutoLISP, the important conclusion I’ve come to is that themethod you use to learn should fit your learning preference (which we examined earlier
in this chapter) and acknowledge your current level of programming expertise
Here are some recommendations I’ve found to be well received over the years:
Those with no programming experience I highly, highly recommend taking a
classroom-style course over the period of several weeks or even months so you can learn not onlyVisual Basic syntax but the general approach to structured programming I was able tolearn AutoLISP and Visual Basic on my own only because I had a good background inthe FORTRAN and Pascal languages (anybody out there old enough to remember those?).There may be exceptions, but I can almost guarantee that those with no programmingexperience won’t be able to pick up a book and learn Visual Basic on their own
Those who know a programming language other than Visual Basic You may be able
to get started using one of the wide varieties of books available online or from yourlocal book store I recommend doing some online research to see which sort of book istargeted to your particular learning style before choosing one I personally used the
Weekend Crash Course series of books by Richard Mansfield to jump-start my Visual
Basic knowledge, even though they required thought, debugging skills, and ance to navigate
persever-Those with some VBA experience Another learning strategy is to periodically hire a
consultant or instructor to provide a few hours of tutelage when you hit plateaus inyour learning curve As you struggle through self-learning, you’ll build up a list ofquestions that a tutor can help you resolve to get you on the way toward more learn-ing Tutors cost money, but they can help you conserve valuable time
No matter who you are Learning Visual Basic is a substantial undertaking, so don’t
kid yourself about the amount of time or effort it will require Be honest about yourstarting point, identify the resources you’ll need to learn, and then embark on yourlearning plan
Trang 8Protecting Your Data
It sounds simple enough: Secure your CAD data
so your company won’t lose valuable intellectual property But with dozens of collaborative soft- ware platforms, websites, and file-security tools competing for your attention, it has become devil- ishly complicated to know what to do Add to the mix the peculiarities of network operating systems, hardware, and security software, and protecting your data becomes a big task.
The fact of the matter is, work products are ing more digital all the time, and there’s increasing pressure to share data And as more of your work
becom-is encoded in digital files that can be easily copied, the likelihood that you can lose control of your data increases How do you deal with these vexing problems? In this chapter, I’ll help you under- stand how valuable your data is and how to pro- tect it using file-security software and legal tools.
As a bonus, I’ll also give you extensive coverage
of data-management tools in case you want to manage your company’s data more aggressively.
11
Trang 9Identifying Intellectual Property
Before CAD, the design process consisted of thoughts being captured on paper Thesepaper drawings contained the minimum information required to permit construction orfabrication of the design Drawings were then released in the form of print sets Theprint sets we transmitted facilitated construction but divulged precious little informa-tion about design decisions In the vernacular of intellectual property, the old paper-based system allowed us to keep most of the intellectual property of our designs in ourminds while passing along only the bare minimum information required to fabricatethe product or building we designed
In today’s digital domain, however, software is becoming much better at ing the thought that goes into designs We now have software that performs kinematicsconstraint modeling, tolerance analysis, land-development computations, architecturalvisualization, and so on Digital design files today are a treasure chest of intellectualproperty that makes yesterday’s prints seem primitive by comparison And although thetechnological advancement is great news for design engineers and architects, it’s trou-bling for those charged with protecting that data from theft
captur-Although we’ve always had the security risk of a paper drawing falling into ourcompetitor’s hands, the risk associated with losing a complete digital design database isakin to giving away your company’s designs If management doesn’t understand howmuch more information is at risk in electronic design environments, they need a seriouswake-up call—and you must be the one to deliver it
Figure 11.1 Because we don’t draw this way anymore, we need new methods to protect our intellectual property.
With our data in digital files, we have to look to digital methods to secure our data
Trang 10Locating Intellectual Property
Where is the intellectual property stored in your organization? A lot of the knowledge
is still in people’s brains, but as they produce working documents to capture their
designs, intellectual property starts to migrate to digital media The places you’ll find
this digital intellectual property, and the type of data found in each location, include
the following:
CAD files These include any files, be they parts, assemblies, drawings, layouts, 3D
renderings, or sketches When information goes into a CAD file, it’s precise data that
could be used to facilitate reverse engineering
Calculation files Spreadsheet files used to compute design parameters are also rich
with unique intellectual property Because spreadsheets contain design equations, they
include the method by which something is designed, not just numbers
Building information models or mechanical CAD assemblies These 3D total system
models contain all the bits and pieces needed to fabricate a building or mechanical
system Because all the parts and their relationships to one another are included,
any-one who intercepts this data will literally know everything about the project
Design or GIS databases Civil engineering systems that contain reams of geospatial
data and the computations for moving earth, soil compaction, grading data, and so on
can be a huge windfall for anyone who intercepts the data for their own use
The common denominator in all these forms of intellectual property is that thedata that allows you to understand a design resides in a digital file format If you lose
track of these files, you don’t just lose a drawing—you lose all the unique intellectual
property that your engineers, architects, and designers have been thinking about for
months or years Seems chilling when put in that perspective, doesn’t it?
Securing Files
If your company’s priceless intellectual property resides in digital files, you’d better
pro-tect those files! Although your company could confront an infinite number of scenarios
in terms of software, networks, collaborative partners, and so on, I’ve found that
secur-ing CAD data can always be described in a simple three-step process:
1. Secure your data in-house
2. Limit the data you share
3. Contractually bind those you share data with
Use these three steps as your guiding principles when you secure your data, andyou’ll focus on the bigger picture of securing your files and make good decisions Now
I’ll break down these steps in detail
Trang 11Securing In-House Data
The first step in protecting your design data is to make sure only trusted staff membershave access to it in the first place; and safe network practices are the place to start Ifyou haven’t already done so, ensure that all design files are in directories that can beviewed only by those who need access to the files I’ve seen firms place CAD files onpublic drives that are viewable by many departments and even outside personnel,although the files can only be edited by project team members Remember that anytime a file is viewable, it can be copied, e-mailed, or otherwise compromised
The basic mechanisms for securing your in-house data depend on the type ofnetwork and software systems your IT department has deployed The common scenar-ios are listed here, and your company may have several of them in place As I presenteach scenario, I’ll pass along advice for securing that data:
Central corporate network Most companies have a local area network (LAN) that
shares files, deploys shared tools like e-mail and Internet access, and so on If travelingworkers have remote access to your network, then there is a possibility that remoteaccess could be used to access data To minimize risks in these environments, it’s key tohave good password control and to locate sensitive CAD data in network directoriesthat are available only to authorized engineering users This is all common sense, but itseems to be overlooked with surprising regularity
FTP servers If you utilize File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers to share files with
out-side customers, consultants, or suppliers, make sure you use the same network controlsfor any shared folders Too often, I see companies with good control over their centralnetwork allow their FTP servers to become a jumble of uncontrolled files Also be sure
to implement careful password control for anyone who uses your FTP site (don’t allowanonymous logins), and require that passwords be changed on a regular basis FTPsites are a great low-cost way to move files back and forth, as long as they’re properlycontrolled
Electronic document management (EDM) systems If you use a document-management
system, examine it carefully to make sure users can’t copy files out of the system Most
of the EDM systems I’ve worked with have some sort of back-door method to copyfiles out of the system—and, shockingly, these back doors seem to be open by default.Don’t assume that your EDM system is secure! Take some time to audit your EDMsoftware to be sure it doesn’t harbor any security breaches
I fixate on stopping unauthorized viewing of files from network and EDM/FTPservers precisely because files can be illegally copied so easily Unauthorized copyingcan, at best, lead to parallel copies or loss of revision control At worst, unauthorizedcopying permits outright theft of information
Trang 12fails, get your network-support people involved, and make sure management
under-stands how crucial it is to have a secure network environment Make no mistake: If
you allow people inside the company to make unauthorized copies of data, you’ll never
maintain control of your intellectual property
Limiting What You Share via Formats
Once you’ve tightened the screws on your network security, you have to take steps
to limit the amount of data that leaves your company when you transmit files to
customers, vendors, and suppliers CAD managers must find a way to let customers/
vendors access the data they need without giving away substantial amounts of
intellec-tual property
Figure 11.2 You can’t just put your sensitive data on CDs and trust that everything will be OK Using secure formats to limit data
exposure should be standard practice
Trang 13Adobe PDF Universally accepted, and easy to print A free viewer is available, but in
order to create PDF files of CAD drawings, you typically need Adobe Acrobat sional, Acrobat 3D, or one of several other comparable products on the market
Profes-Autodesk DWF Profes-Autodesk centric; controls CAD entities using a CAD-like interface
(think layers, plotting setups, views, and so on) Easy to print, and a free viewer isavailable Any Autodesk application can produce DWF files for no charge; but becauseDWF is so CAD specific, the non-CAD world isn’t aware of DWF as they are of PDF
If you upgrade to DWF Composer, you can also create markup sets that correlate back
to AutoCAD’s sheet set functionality
SolidWorks eDrawings Basically has the same pluses and minuses as DWF, but specific
to the SolidWorks CAD environment In later releases, eDrawings has embraced porting the DWG file format, which makes eDrawings a logical choice for mixed Solid-Works and AutoCAD environments
sup-The common denominator of all these formats is that they convey the visualinformation your customer/supplier needs, but they don’t divulge the complex data thatfacilitated the design The publishing utility you choose will depend on the softwareyou use and your customer/vendor’s willingness to use these software tools to collabo-rate with you
Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I highly recommend usingone of these neutral publishing formats to limit your information vulnerability Don’tsend your full CAD data set unless you absolutely have to!
Limiting What You Share via Tools
In the past few years, applications that secure data—CAD and neutral files alike—havebecome more available, if not more popular Although none of the applications I’llmention offers security for all file types, each one offers some insight into how digital
last 15 years, you’ve probably used ZIP files to achieve file compression; but are you aware of the passwordsecurity that can be encoded into ZIPs? By encoding drawing submittals into a password-protected ZIP, you’llknow that the recipient of your files (via e-mail or FTP site) must follow password protocols
Trang 14file security may look in the near future I think each of these applications merits a
look even if you have little interest in the topic right now:
Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server If you rely heavily on Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word
or Excel, or Dassault Systémes CATIA files to transmit information, then Policy Server
is worth a look By installing a Policy Server within your organization, you can set
up policies that control how, or even if, a remote reader can see files All sorts of security
policy gradations are possible, from a finite number of openings, to a time-based
period of access, to no access at all
Policy Server is a slam-dunk choice for PDF files, but support for applicationslike Microsoft Excel and Word and CAD files has been missing until now Recently,
Adobe acquired a division of Navisware to beef up its support of Microsoft Office and
Dassault Systémes CAD files in Policy Server Whether direct support of Autodesk
products will be forth coming isn’t known as of this writing
Pinion Software Desktop Packager and Receiver This tool is along the same lines as
Adobe Policy Server but is used on your desktop at a cheaper price point Pinion’s
soft-ware provides protection for popular neutral formats like PDF, DWF, and eDrawings:
Anyone who receives files must utilize the intelligent Receiver module to gain access to
the protected content Think of the Packager as similar to Adobe Acrobat Professional
and the Receiver as Adobe Reader, and you’ll have a pretty good mental picture of how
they work
CADLock CADVault CADVault takes a different path than Adobe or Pinion It’s an
AutoCAD-specific application that encodes the DWG file you send and then uses an
object-enabler module to let the recipient decode the DWG Running under AutoCAD’s
command and control enables CADVault to secure portions of a drawing—say, just
certain layers—while enabling the user to add content to the drawing in unprotected
layers Even if you don’t manage an AutoCAD-specific office, CADVault is worth a
look in terms of what content-management software can offer from within a CAD
interface
By looking at the following web resources, you can gain access to white papers,trial software downloads, and a wide variety of interesting resources about digital file
security to gauge what’s out there, how much it costs, and how easy/complex it would
be to implement in your environment:
• Adobe Incorporated: LiveCycle Policy Server (www.adobe.com/products/server/policy/)
• Autodesk Incorporated: DWF Composer, Writer and Viewer (www.autodesk.com/dwf)
• CADLock Incorporated: CADVault (www.cadlock.com)
• Pinion Software: Desktop Packager and Receiver (www.pinionsoftware.com)
• SolidWorks Corporation: eDrawings (www.solidworks.com/edrawings/)
Trang 15Contractually Binding Agreements
You’ve gone to great lengths to locate your intellectual property and minimize its sure via clever use of software tools and network procedures But at some point, mostCAD managers need to share data with outside vendors, clients, or subcontractingpartners
expo-In these cases, you need to go the extra step to make sure legal procedures are inplace to prevent willful theft of intellectual property I’ll cover this topic in more detail
in the “Controlling Projects with Contracts” section of this chapter
In Conclusion
I’ve found that there’s no one magic way to protect your CAD information from digitalplunder I have, however, observed that companies that follow the basic steps I’ve out-lined reduce their risks substantially If you don’t have any security in place to protectyour CAD data, you should be talking to management about implementing somethingnow, before it’s too late
CAD files, like accounting data, must be viewed as highly valued assets thatmust be protected against theft or espionage Make sure management understands therisks, and plan your strategies accordingly
Controlling Projects with Contracts
I know that CAD managers aren’t lawyers and may not want to mess with legal ters, but every CAD manager needs to be involved in project contract control To not
mat-do so puts your company’s intellectual property at risk
No matter what you do to thwart electronic theft, you can’t guarantee thateverything will always go as planned And no matter how much you trust the otherparties working with your data, you don’t know that they’ll follow your procedures;
so, the issue becomes whether you can enforce your intellectual property rights if/when
an infraction occurs To do this, you need to have contracts in place, signed by theupper management of all companies involved, that give you legal recourse in the event
of a violation
Your job as CAD manager is to consider how you’ll exchange information ing a project and to convey that information to your project-management and/or legalteam to be sure contractual protection is in place Good legal/contractual support alsosends a signal to everyone you work with that you’re serious about protecting yourintellectual property