Case Study
Engineering Change Control
A high-tech electronics manufacturer issues engineering change orders on a regular basis from design, manufacturing, and field service. Since the volume of product is relatively small, almost every product delivery is a unique configuration due to all of the engineering change activity. Because of the urgency of most of the changes, the paperwork is usually done after the change actually took place and frequently is inadequate at best. To compound the problem occasionally a change goes through to fix a problem that already has been fixed by another change. Management viewed the entire ECO process as a "paper-tiger" that added no value and served only to slow deliveries to customers. At the same time the salespeople were frustrated in the inability to ship product that worked and included all the latest features promised by development. Field service gave up on any formal documentation and resorted to servicing each installation as a unique machine and often designed and installed their own changes without informing anyone else.
When a user examined the forms and paperwork flow behind an ECO it was a wonder that anything ever got successfully processed. We implemented simplified ECO forms that communicated essential information but eliminated many of the sign-off's - pushing responsibility to team leaders for proper team implementation. By using a kanban system for each type of change, pressure was put on the offending ECO to either "move or get out of the way." ECO's were broken into small manageable pieces viewed as continuous product improvement as opposed to sweeping redesigns. Multiple sources of the item master and bill of material structure for engineering, manufacturing, and planning were consolidated into one common database. With full MRP connectivity, item and bill inaccuracies flushed out quickly. A dramatic reduction in lengthy Change Control Board meetings came about by using smaller ECO's. Periodic re-evaluations are conducted to test the need for the information being gathered and archived.
After resolving the grid-lock between departments and gathering consensus to initiate this project, management started to view the ECO system as a valuable tool for incorporating change not only from engineering but from sales, service, marketing, manufacturing, finance, virtually everyone else in the organization. It became a "product suggestion box." They also had tighter financial control and knowledge in addition to more accurate customer promise dates. Engineering had a large database of suggested changes to consider whenever they were doing product enhancements.
While still necessarily complex and detailed, the Engineering Change System was now viewed as an asset to achieving customer-oriented goals throughout the organization.