Who is a CAD Admin & what do they do?
CAD Administration brings together skills from various areas, including CAD usage, software troubleshooting, strategic system design & server maintenance.
CAD Admins may be engineers or drafters with a part-time responsibility for CAD & PDM maintenance, or they may be full-time dedicated people. It all depends on the number and ability of their CAD users.
Who are they? - Here are some of the key skills of your typical CAD Admin:
- CAD "Power User"
- A couple of years experience as a grass-roots user. I reckon this is an important aspect of any CAD troubleshooter, and gives more credibility among the users.
- Proven ability in CAD, with some advanced knowledge preferable.
- Troubleshooter
- Quick-witted with a knack for getting to the root of software issues.
- Calm & methodical approach to problems, avoiding unneccessary panic.
- Strategic thinker
- Keeping the bigger picture in mind, relating single-user issues to the entire userbase, spreading benefits & warnings.
- Dealing with interfaces to external systems, eg: enterprise PDM, MRP, etc.
- Continual discussion with managers and decision-makers.
- Trainer
- Ability to help users improve, whether through class teaching, one-to-one tuition or other knowledge/skills-sharing methods.
- Good reputation + contacts
- Particularly in a larger company, it's important to have the right IT contacts and permissions. A good relationship with IT reduces headaches & red tape hassle.
So, what do they do? - Jobs like this:
- Software installation & upgrades - servers and clients. Co-ordination of users, hardware & software - this can be one of the time-intensive aspects, particularly if you've got more than a handful of users.
- Customisation - creation & maintenance of startup scripts, plotting configs, macros/mapkeys, etc...
- Your suggestions here...
Note: This is based on my experience in a couple of different roles over the past several years, first as an engineer/part-time CADmin in a small company with a few users and now full-time CADmin in a global company with hundreds of users.
