Systematic decision support for engineering change management in plm

Engineering Change Management (ECM) is an important component of PLM. ECM modules in current PLM solutions conform to the industry-standard CMII closed-loop change model. They provide customised forms and pre-defined work-flows for creating and processing change requests, change orders, etc. Evaluating the effects of the proposed Engineering Change on manufacturing processes, BOM, lead times, inventory, etc., usually form tasks in this generic workflow. However, each change has different downstream effects, which themselves lead to further changes that may not be evident. Identifying these impacts requires considerable experience and expertise. This paper addresses the need for automated tools to assist this process. The approach involves dynamic creation of workflow tasks for evaluating cascaded effects of any change using a predefined industry specific knowledge base. The process is further enhanced by prioritising the evaluation of effects based on experience generated by past engineering changes.