CAD Conversion Project – Technology Roadmap

Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 20th Nov. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

Technology roadmap is a mechanism for identification, justification, planned evolution and

orchestration of technologies to enhance business performance (Mckeen and Smith 2009).

It has been my intention to keep it as brief as possible and will be glad to expand it or add some
explanation if required.

Technology roadmap has seven main elements which bases on CAD conversion project requirement can
be specified as follow:

1. Guiding principles
A. Outline the goals
a. What is planned to be achieved?
b. Is it only about converting some existing models from some specific CAD packages to
PDMS, or it needs to cover the other way around as well.
c. Are we planning to prepare a technology to be able to cover future needs and packages
with some additional customization?
d. Does it come from adding value to core competences in terms of business strategy or it
comes as a one off troubleshooting task?
B. Budget
a. How much budget do we have?
b. Are we allowed to spend 10 - 15% of budget for R&D for future expansion of the project
as a generally accepted practise?
C. Scope of project
a. Packages needed to be covered in terms of diversity and vendors.
b. Do we suppose to cover only CAD packages or CAE packages must be covered as well?
D. Project expectations (Accuracy)
a. Do we need to cover only main members or full detail needed?
For example does project require just converting main structural profiles or it needs to
convert all the connection details and details? Or it only requires transferring pipes or
needed to cover pipe supports, hangers and etc.
b. Do we need to prepare a Real Time Conversion Interface (which will have a lot of
advantages but obviously is more complicated) or conversions needed to be done
manually by project teams?

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 CAD Conversion Project – Technology Roadmap
Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 20th Nov. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

E. What are the standards needed to be considered and their restrictions?

F. What is the level of supports needed to be provided to local offices in terms of training,
desktop and remote supports, instruction and procedures?
G. Specify the level of residence skills
How many in-house administrators and developer exist and what are their capabilities?
H. How often this project needed to be re-evaluated?
How much are we committed to implement the feedbacks from local offices?
I. Time frame
Are we able to justify the time schedule or it is fixed?

2. Current technology
A. Which one of targeted CAD packages can be covered or supported by existing AVEVA or
third parties applications and by how many percent? Can these existing packages satisfy
project expectations or needed to be enhanced or developed?
B. For each and every package we need to specify:
Vendor, business process area, level of supports from vendor, capabilities to accommodate
projects needs, capabilities to be developed internally, ease of use and critical or
noncritical (can be replaced or not?), life cycle and other advantages and disadvantages
(Mckeen and Smith 2009).
C. Assigning technology custodian/owner to each package
D. Establish WISE (Watch, Invest, Support and Eliminate) chart to each package by
custodian/Owner.
E. Specify packages that are inflexible
F. Specify elements that do not meet strategic direction
G. Components those are expensive to maintain

3. Gap analysis to evaluate and clarify:

A. Required technology base on Guiding Principles
B. Do we need to follow company’s business strategy or we need to be ahead of it to give
initiatives ideas to CIO for company performance enhancement.
C. What are the applications that can be or needed to be acquired from third parties developers?
D. What are the macros needed to be developed in-house?

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 CAD Conversion Project – Technology Roadmap
Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 20th Nov. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

4. Technology landscape
E. Specify the level of R&D freedom
F. Do we need to stick to AVEVA PDMS or we can consider any other possibilities such as
Autodesk MEP or any other plant management systems from other vendors to be deployed in
future.
G. Wider look at industry vendors development plans needed to be taken into consideration. For
examples if AVEVA is planning or developing anything new to cover any of our CAD
packages then we need to emphasise more on the other needs.

5. Future technology
Base on project scope, expectation, gap analysis and technology landscape, we should:
A. Specify the path forward to choose future technology and applications.
B. Specify the reasoning behind our selection to allow obtaining constructive feedback by
inviting stakeholders to challenge the logic instead of challenging the decision.
C. Finding the “sweet spot” between too tactical roadmap and too strategic one.

6. Migration strategy to specify:

A. Deploying new technology roadmap will effect on all LOBs (Line of businesses) and
departments in terms of obeying new modelling procedures and standards.
B. Does the conversion needed to be done on whole projects at once (Big Bang) and LOBs or it
can be done step by step and gradually?

7. Governance
A. Specify Strategic (corporate level) and Tactical level (project level) authorities.
B. Procedures and guidance to be prepared by tactical level and their enforcement by strategic
level authorities.
C. Re-evaluation plans needed to be put in place to update and enhance the roadmap and its
timeframe.

Reference:
Mackeen J. and Smith H. (2009), IT Strategy in Action, New Jersy, Prentice Hall.

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