I have just read a post in Jos Voskuil blog concerning change management in SMB. You can read the complete post, but in general Jos had conducted an Engineering Express training for ENOVIA SmarTeam resellers. During the training people were wondering whether SMB companies should implement change management (like the big companies…), because the process is creating an overhead that compromises flexibility…well…the truth is that change management (ECR/ECO) is not only about the process!

Moreover, managing ECRs is about traceability, about data management and reducing cost, it is about improving decisions, accuracy and quality of our products. The last time I heard, SMB companies need that also… in a matter of fact… isn’t it why we implement PLM?

So let’s start look at the reasons why we need change management (ECR/ECO):

We all know that if a change will be done during concept or planning phases of the project will cost 1$, the same change in development phase will cost ~100 times more, if this change will happened during manufacturing probably it will cost ~1000 times more… in euros not dollars… it is clear I need to make sure I have as less changes in the product as I move forward from concept to manufacturing in order to achieve that, I need to have the ability to completely understand the items affected from the change (when I worked at Elta, before we implemented change management in our PLM system, we had ~3 ECRs in average for each change. people were working with ECR paper form and doing one for the part they needed to change but what about other parts affected by this change?).

I need to understand all the content of this change (the problem/affected items, the solution items, any references for the change, the change data).

Do I need to be Compliant with standards and regulation like CMII? EIA-649? MIL-STD-973A?

A lot of times you will find parallel change requests on the same item (e.g. I am performing a change on an item and on its assembly also, another engineer is now wishing to perform a change on a different item under the same assembly) can I join the effort and conduct a single ECR for both? probably yes… if I would have only knew about the parallel ECRs…

I need to have the traceability when I am looking at an item which ECO is the origin of this item, what was the change request that was approved for that, is that what was actually implemented in the part?

In order to improve my processes and make better decisions, I need to be able to get statistics and analysis data about the ECRs we are doing (which member of my team has ECRs with the reason of drawing errors? how much? can I start give my team members objectives, measurable objectives for improving the quality of our designs? If the customer keeps giving us changes, can I retrieve all ECRs with the reason of customer request, calculate the changes cost and ask the customer to pay? or do I just lose money… does SMB company has a lot of money to give away…? let’s say I would like to reuse a product developed 5 years ago, probably some of its components have newer versions, how can I easily gets all ECRs opened on this product in the past 5 years and retrieve the newer versions created based on those ECRs?).

Can I do all that by using manual forms? or the new generation data management system called emails?

By implementing change management with ENOVIA SmarTeam Engineering Express I can easily understand the items affected from the change, making sure a change is complete and being done ones. By using all links navigation I can easily navigate to where the problem item is used, what are the documents/analysis/tooling/… related to it that are affects. I can also understand the full content of the change (the problem/affected items, the solution items, any references for the change, the change data):

I can be easily compliant with standards and regulation like CMII, EIA-649, MIL-STD-973A. I can also have single and comprehensive ECR instead of parallel ECRs that will save me money and will improve my quality:

I will have the traceability when I am looking at an item which ECO is the origin of this item, what was the change request that was approved for that, what are the original (affected) items that this item is based on:

I can improve my processes and make better decisions, I will be able to get statistics and analysis data about the ECRs we are performing:

I also will be able to get an ECR report to even see it manually like I used to:

Ahhhh… So I guess the overhead that compromises flexibility actually will make my development process easier, will make my decisions better, will reduce my development time and will save me money… a lot of money… just for the example, a company with only 10 engineers creating around only 1 change a week can save by implementing this ‘pure overhead’ change management around 150,000$ a year!

I actually will be able to deliver my products earlier to market (maybe before my competition?). Isn’t it what PLM is really about???

Now… does it really matters if I have 2 or 3 or 5 nodes in the process?