In the late 1970s I worked in an engineering department where one of my responsibilities was the custodian and distributor of all engineering data. In addition, I did all the corporate new product quoting--such things as UPS truck bodies and the bodies for the original Atlanta Airport People Movers. Everything was paper and manual. Drawings to bills of material to routings to costing.

Today we do the same tasks, except that everything is digital. The drawings are all digital files, the BOM--digital, sorting/costing/checking all faster and digital. We adapt and adopt technology to do things better.

The problem remains--leadership and management of the systems to implement all these technologies in order to reap the rewards.

That--is the challenge before us.