Engineering change management (ECM for short) is the process of requesting, evaluating alternatives, implementation and reviewing of changes to any given system or product. Depending on the product and the items the changes can be either total or partial. For instance there might be a change only in component, assembly or material.
Changes form part of most products nowadays especially the ones that consist of rapidly evolving technologies. Changes also provide an opportunity for an organization to get more benefits and also to foster some innovation across the whole organization.
Usually the engineering change management process is made up of 6 processes.
Request for engineering change
A formal request (engineering change request) must be made and it must precisely define what falls within the scope of changes that will be managed via the ad hoc procedure.
Alternatives to the requested change are evaluated
Alternatives to the ECM are evaluated and the best one is normally taken.
Alternatives are evaluated in terms of costs and benefits
Alternatives are normally evaluated in terms of risk and other benefits and also impact on the other departments.
Solution approval
The top management needs to give approval to the favored solution.
Implementation stage
Once the approval from top management is obtained the change order needs to be circulated throughout the whole organization. The changes can be made either straight away or in some cases in small phase.
Reviewing
The change process is carefully reviewed to ensure that everything went out as planned and that proper documentation is made.
These 6 steps make up the generic engineering change management process but may be more or less detailed depending on the organization.
Written by Robert Bellarmine for www.visitask.com
ECM is simply one of the elements that may make or break your projects. Do you want to evaluate the quality of your projects? Visit our site to obtain our free project management efficiency evaluator
