This chapter contains these topics:
Manufacturers must respond quickly with engineering changes in order to maintain and increase market share. Engineering changes might be necessary to respond to market demand, governmental requirements, safety issues, service requirements, or functional and competitive reasons.
Some industries may be subject to federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or Sarbanes - Oxley regulations regarding electronic approvals. To comply, JD Edwards World offers the option to use secure electronic signatures when creating, working with, and approving engineering change orders.
Use the Engineering Change Management system to create, plan, review, approve, and implement ECOs.
Engineering change management consists of the following tasks:
Setting up engineering change orders
Working with engineering change orders
Reviewing engineering change orders
Approving engineering change orders
ECOs are numbered documents that you use to track product changes within the Engineering Change Management system. After you have tested and approved an ECO, you can implement it and modify your standard product or process.
Product or process changes can impact many areas within your company, including:
Customer service
Tooling
Standards
Suppliers
Master production schedule
Product cost
Service parts
Inventory
Plant layout
ECOs enable you to:
Feature | Description |
---|---|
Define who approves the ECO |
|
Define which items to change |
|
Define the change routing |
|
Define additional detail |
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ECOs integrate with the following systems:
System | Description |
---|---|
Shop Floor Control | Uses the revision level maintained by ECOs to retrieve the appropriate bill of material for a work order.
You can create a work order from a prior ECO revision level. |
Inventory Management | Updates the Item Master revision level. |
Product Data Management | Uses the Engineering Change Population program to update bills of material. |
ERPx | Activates flash messaging in Material Requirements Planning, Purchase Order Management and Inventory Management to warn of a pending ECO. The Master Production Scheduling system uses the effectivity dates established by ECOs to plan and introduce products. |
The ECO process includes the following personnel:
The administrator sets up the ECO by:
Setting up the approval routing master
Reviewing and modifying the ECO codes
Setting up next numbers
The coordinator creates the ECO by:
Verifying that no prior ECO exists for this change
Entering the ECO
Defining the change with a list of affected parent and component items
Establishing the new routing operations to implement the ECO
Maintaining supplemental details
Running the notification program
The reviewer approves the ECO by:
Reviewing the ECO after system notification.
Running reports with information for an individual ECO or a list of open ECOs
Indicating approval or rejection
Periodically checking for outstanding ECOs
The coordinator implements the ECO by:
Running the Engineering Change Population (P30510) program
The following graphic illustrates the ECO process.
You can define the engineering change order by determining the type of change to make and identifying parent and component items.
For example, you can determine whether to:
Add a new part
Change an existing part
Swap an old part with a new part
Remove an existing item
The values you enter in the Change Type and Parent/Child Relationship fields define these changes and determine how the Engineering Change Population program updates the bill of material for the item.
You can use the following values:
Field | Value |
---|---|
Change Type | N – add new part
C – change existing part S – swap old part with new part R – remove existing part |
Parent/Child Relationship | P– parent item
C– component item |
These fields allow several possible combinations:
ECO Parts List form Change Type | P/C Rel | Enter the following: | Related Items form Revision Level | Enter the following: |
---|---|---|---|---|
Add a new bill: | ||||
N | P | New parent item for the new bill | New parent revision | Components for the new parent |
Change the bill: | ||||
S | P | Swap to parent information in fold | Swap to parent rev in fold | Not allowed |
Swap a parent item: | ||||
Swap from parent | Rev of swap from parent in fold | |||
Remove a bill: | ||||
R | P | Current parent information | Current revision | Not allowed |
Add a new component | ||||
N | C | New component | New component revision | Parent bills using component (where used) |
Change a component | ||||
C | C | The component to change | New revision of component | Parent bills that will have component changes |
Swap a component: | ||||
S | C | Swap to component in fold | Revision of swap to component in fold | Parent bill having components swapped |
Swap from component | Revision of swap from component in fold | |||
Remove a component: | ||||
R | C | Component to remove | Revision of component to remove | Parent bills have component removed (where used) |
A revision level is an alphanumeric character that represents the number of times an item has been changed. This usually indicates a permanent change to an item's form, fit, or function. For efficient tracking of changes with revision levels, the revision levels for an item's bill of material and routing should match. You can use an ECO to update an item's revision level and a drawing's revision level.
Use ECOs to manage the following revision level information:
Set up the next revision levels (30/NR) for ECOs
Load parent revision levels for component being added or modified
Locate the revision levels of an ECO
Assign ECO revision levels automatically
Maintain drawing revision levels for each item changed by an ECO, and update the drawing revision in either the Bill of Material or Item Master tables.
The Engineering Change Management system uses the following tables:
Table | Description |
---|---|
F4801 | The ECO Work Order Master table stores the ECOs and the manufacturing work orders. |
F3002 | The Bill of Material Master table defines and maintains branch/plant information about bills of material, such as quantities of components, features and options, effectivity dates, grade/potency and lot constants, and levels of detail. |
F48092 | The ECO Supplemental table stores additional information about ECOs, such as implementation costs. |
F3013 | The ECO Parts List table contains the list of parts that are affected by the ECO. |
F4808 | The ECO Approval Routing Master table contains the address book numbers of the people who are responsible for approving ECOs and determines the order in which they should be notified. |
F4818 | The ECO Approval Audit table contains the approval history of an ECO. |
F0101 | The Address Book table is the central repository for all address information pertaining to customers, vendors, employees, prospects, and so forth. |
F0006 | The Business Unit Master table identifies branch, plant, warehouse, and business unit information, such as company, description (name), and category codes assigned to that entity. |
F3112 | The Routing Revisions table contains the routing steps for implementing the ECO. |
F4102 | The Branch/Plant Master table contains the ECO number, date, reason, and item revision level information for the branch/plant. |
Define your items in the Inventory Management system. See Section 3.1, "Entering Item Master Information."
Define your work centers. See Section 9.1, "Entering Work Centers."