11 Overview to Engineering Change Management

This chapter contains these topics:

11.1 Objectives

  • To learn how to create and maintain engineering change orders (ECOs)

  • To understand the notification process

  • To understand the approval process

11.2 About Engineering Change Management

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.

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

11.2.1 What Is an ECO (Engineering Change Order)?

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

11.2.2 Features

ECOs enable you to:

Action Description
Define who approves the ECO
  • Establish levels of approval, so that each member of the first review group must approve the ECO before the next group receives notification

  • Locate the status of an ECO and review who has approved it and who has yet to approve it

  • Use electronic mail to notify and approve ECOs

  • Create and maintain bill of material data that is associated with the change

  • Notify reviewers during the approval process

  • Limit access to the approval records
Define which items to change
  • Describe the change

  • Define the parts and processes that are necessary to implement the ECO

  • Include multiple parent item/process or component/ingredient relationships on the same change order
Define the change routing
  • Itemize the steps required to make the change
Define additional detail
  • Enter supporting data, such as costs, dates, reasons, status, affected work and purchase orders, approval history, and implementation steps into a centralized database

  • Identify the originator and reason for the change

  • Set up user defined codes to define reason, status, and disposition of the change order

  • Attach supplemental information

11.2.3 System Integration

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.

11.2.4 Who Is Involved in the ECO Process?

The ECO process includes the following personnel:

  1. The administrator sets up the ECO by:

    • Setting up the approval routing master

    • Reviewing and modifying the ECO codes

    • Setting up next numbers

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. The coordinator implements the ECO by:

    • Running the Engineering Change Population (P30510) program

The following graphic illustrates the ECO process.

11.2.5 What Kinds of Changes Can I Define?

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:

Value Description
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 eight possible combinations:

Task ECO Parts List form Change Type ECO Parts List form P/C Rel ECO Parts List form Enter the following: ECO Parts List form Revision Level Related Items form Enter the following: Related Items form Revision Level
Add a new bill N P New parent item for the new bill New parent revision Components for the new parent Revision level of added components
Change the bill C P Current parent item Current parent revision Updated parent information New revision
Swap a parent item S P Swap to parent information in fold

Swap from parent

 Swap to parent rev in fold

Rev of swap from parent in fold

 Not allowed Not allowed
Remove a bill R P Current parent information Current revision Not allowed Not allowed
Add a new component N C New component New component revision Parent bills using component (where used) Revision of new components' parent
Change a component C C The component to change New revision of component Parent bills that will have component changes Parent of new component revision
Swap a component S C Swap to component in fold

Swap from component

 Revision of swap to component in fold

Revision of swap from component in fold

 Parent bill having components swapped Revision of parent having component swapped
Remove a component R C Component to remove Revision of component to remove Parent bills have component removed (where used) Revision of parent having component removed

11.3 About ECO Revision Levels

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.

11.3.1 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.

11.3.2 Before You Begin