ECM

Engineering Change Management

Leverage Solumina’s integrated engineering change management to minimize downtime, accelerate throughput, and reduce rework.

Overview

Automate and streamline Engineering Change Management

In complex discrete manufacturing, frequent engineering change orders (ECOs) are a fact of life and can result in significant downtime and high costs. With the Solumina platform, you can implement engineering change in real-time during a production run while keeping operations moving. Avoid the delays associated with other approaches and maintain visibility and traceability as changes are implemented.

Introduction to ECM

At its most basic, engineering change management is a closed-loop process used to implement changes to components, products, or processes. It involves requesting, evaluating, planning, implementing, and tracing an engineering change to completion. ECM can be daunting when managing the production of complex products with intricate processes. The Solumina platform streamlines and expedites all aspects of this process.

Features

Features Of Engineering Change Management

Complex manufacturers often deal with invasive engineering change orders that need to be closely tied into the shop floor.

When an engineering change occurs, many departments and individuals need to be notified of the changes. Updated work instructions must be sent to every production line. Suppliers must be notified, and new part shipments arranged. Warehouses must be restocked. Price lists must be updated. And critically, production lines often sit idle until the changes are complete. With Solumina, it’s easy to control and implement engineering changes. As engineering change orders are received, plans can be revised quickly.

Existing orders can be superseded to incorporate changes automatically with no loss of data in the existing work history, and individual work orders can also be altered to ensure the latest processes are being followed. Changes can then be propagated on a larger scale to include additional orders. This data is incorporated in the digital thread that accompanies each product’s lifecycle. Key features of Solumina’s ECM solution include:

Manage External and Internal Changes

Solumina can capture change information entered manually or pull it in automatically from an external system like a PLM. Internal changes typically involve process planning and execution, while external changes are typically used to manage product design. Solumina captures these change orders on the fly along with critical details that will be leveraged throughout the change management process.

Connect Affected and Resulting Objects

Use Solumina to identify the affected objects that are the subject of the change (parts, tools, process plans, etc.) and digitally link them with resulting objects that will be triggered by the change (replacement parts, replacement tools, etc.). Creating this connection in Solumina enables mass updates and streamlines subsequent stages of the change management process.

Impact Analysis

Additional items like process plans, work orders, and inspections are often impacted because of their association with the affected objects on a change order. Leverage Solumina to automatically generate a list of all the impacted objects that will require an update, and then plan and review the next steps for that order.

Action Planning

Action plans are detailed instructions on how to proceed with the implementation of the engineering change order in the system. With Solumina, you can create an organized, comprehensive summary list of planned actions that provide in-depth instructions, priority, start and end date, and assignees.

Execution

Release the actions on your plan, prompting tagged employees to take action on them with home screen updates and alerts. Solumina requires technicians to acknowledge new or updated work instructions to ensure they are working on the most recent documentation. Maintain visibility on progress and track your plan to completion.

Close the Loop

Once all actions are complete, Solumina updates the state of the change, providing closed-loop communication back to the requestor of the change.

Benefits

Benefits of Solumina ECM

Managing engineering changes with Solumina drives efficiency and precision.

Respond Faster

Capture and manage engineering changes on the fly as they come in.

Mass Updates

Immediately propagate changes to all affected process plans, work instructions, and other documentation.

Drive Awareness

Require technicians to acknowledge new/updated work instructions to ensure they are working from the new documentation.

Retain Work History

Existing orders can be superseded to incorporate engineering changes automatically with no loss of data in the existing work history.

Minimize Downtime

Implement changes faster and only where needed to get your production line moving again.

Reduce Errors

Improve first-time right metrics and reduce defects with the ability to update process plans precisely and in real-time.

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ECM