KEDB engineering change process

KEDB Engineering change process
since February 29, 2000, last modified February 29, 2000

The engineering changes modify not only the product data itself but also its constituent relationship. More over, they also modify the configuration of the product. The result makes a new configuration and would effect other configurations which use the changed part as their sub assemblies.

In the recent networked business environment, the change should be propagated to outside company through the supply and demand chains. The current globally unified market pressures companies to exchange product information with suppliers and customers at light speed.

A generic engineering change process, KEDB engineering change process (KEDB EC process), is provided as a reference for all the models, articles and representations in KEDB. This is simple, but has all the aspect needed to describe the engineering changes in manufacturing companies.

The following is the description of each process in KEDB EC process:

Problem identification
Designers can recognize the problems of their product from various sources. The request for engineering change (ECR) could be issued by, for an example, a customer support person and there could be business processes and supporting systems that collect the requests and manage their implementation. If ECR is considerable, the designer propose the engineering change plan to the reviewers in the design department.

Research and change
The designer researches solutions for the problem and applies them to the parts and the product structure (the engineering bill of material). The history of the change and related technical report such as part list, bill of material, and technical documents are reviewed and approved by reviewers in the engineering departments. After the review the information is sent to other department related to the change with the engineering change notice (ECN).

Change review
The related departments review the EC and feed back the effect to their departments. The cost or other factors are considered during the review and approval process. From this stage, the production management department manages ECs and release the engineering change order (ECO) if they are approved.

Engineering change implementation
The production management department decides when the EC will be applied to the production, and assign planned effectivity for the production. The plan will be executed through the material resource planning (MRP) with consideration of the inventory, resources and demands.

Customer support engineering change
The EC should be applied to the part catalogues of the product and ERP for service parts. The CS department revises their catalogue and publishes different edition which reflects the engineering changes. The CS EC process consists of the following sup processes (see dbook #9 DFD).

5.1 Filter EC for CS
5.2 List ECed Part with CS Info
5.3 Plan the Parts
5.4 Up Load The List to CS ERP

Knowledge & Engineering Databases (c) copyright Namchul Do, 2000