Change Management Process - PLM view

Change Management Process:

The methodology to manage the changes in the product configurations during its lifecycle process

Ensuring:

·       Standard process

·       Controllability, Traceability

·       Completeness

·       Validity

·       Approval

Managing change is critical to controlling product evolution and product configurations

We need changes to fix things & to improve things & for many other reasons as well Configurations management is the framework in which changes

takes place

Changes come from internal as well external sources

Change Management begins at the start of product lifecycle and continuous throughout lifecycle

Changes need to be managed & tracked from start to finish

Key change Concepts:

Encourage change

               Keep changes small and simple to minimize required approvals and time lags

3 steps – change request, change order, change notification

               Consider adding problem report, in the beginning to allow anyone relevant, including customers and suppliers to submit issues

Lead the process with the documentation – What the change is intended to accomplish, why, how, cost

Why Change Management Process?

•             Changes pushed out without proper authorization

•             Not all changes are being followed

•             Starting point not established or not being updated

•             The right people are not involved in the change process

•             Full impact of change unknown first time around

•             Through change evaluation not being done

•             Controllability is weak

•             Change process takes too long

•             Metrics not being tracked or reported

•             Personal working on wrong information

Change process failure:

Change is too tight controlled during WIP

               Data is left vulnerable, outside control of the PDM vault

               People workaround processes

All the changes are traced equally

               Process is delayed due to over complicated

Different level of changes should receive different levels of control and sign off – more complicated or costly – more control

The process is not closed Loop:

               The person who requested needs to know it was resolved

               Other people need to be notified as well

Changes are not always tracked against all of the data they impact, such as labeling, artwork, and packing

               Change is incomplete

Change process is complicated when external partners have to be involved in decision making

               Fail to gain complete understanding of change impact

               Companies do not provide external partners enough access

Determining the cost of a change is often difficult – many times people lack access to cost data

               Changes delayed due to fear of costly mistake

               Changes undertaken without understanding the lifecycle cost

Key control Points;

•             The review and disposition (approval or disapproval) of each enterprise change request (ECR)

•             Planning and implementation of approved ECRs

•             Validation of new and revised information to be released

•             Work authorization allows the use of changed data

Best Practices:

•    Change is managed proactively within the product development environment  Multiple changes are encouraged early in the product lifecycle where they are very inexpensive

Changes are managed so that the true impact of change is always well understood (implies access to product data include cost, inventory)

•     Incomplete but accurate product design data is valuable to supply chain processes

Productive work can be done on product and process definition information that are accurate but not complete

Retaining definition information until the design is complete reduces the enterprise agility (restricted access) 

•      Owners of data are identified as responsible for changes to that data
All product and process definition information has owners who are responsible for understanding the impact of change on the data elements they own

       Owners must understand how their data elements are related to other product definition information

•   Users or owners of the item being changes should approve, not a manager

•   More than 3 or 4 approves are typically not necessary

               Typically,

once key approvers sign off, everyone else follows along anyway

               If people

feel the need to know what is happening, use notifications

•   Product changes must be communicated throughout enterprise and to extend enterprise participants as required

Proposed and approved changes are communicated at the right time, to the right people, where they are located

•    Take holistic approach to change management – allowing you to better understand the impact of change in all forms

               Implement a PLM solution that manages the BOM at its core

               Provide access to external information (eg: cost) via PLM interface

•     View change management as part of comprehensive configuration management activity                        Supporting technologies are not good if they are not used within the proper process environment

PLM for change Management

•             PLM provides one master Bill of information – BOI

A physical information structure with the multiple logical

views such as as-designed, as-planned, as-assembled, as-delivered, as-maintained

•             This master BOI is managed by one system and it feeds product configuration info to all other systems

               It is the system record

•             It is the source for information critical to assessing change impact

•             PLM can proactively warn of problems & delays in change processes

               Provide metric to gauge success

•             PLM workflows control & assure process adherence

               Can support both fast track and normal track versions of workflows

               Streamline change processes and sign offs

•             PLM provides visibility to product process change info so that it can be managed strategically during all the phases of the lifecycles, thereby reducing the total costs of change

•             PLM supports visual collaboration during the product change, with visualization and virtual meeting technology

•             PLM provide tractability

The goal is to achieve end item traceability on all the changes without compromising the rules of interchangeability and to do so cost effectivity

•             PLM integrated with ERP and pother systems to provide access to other data (cost, inventory...)

Concluding Remarks:

• Embrace & encourage change – changes help make better products
• Learn about PLM – understand how it can support change processes
• Understand your change process and business rules when implementing PLM
• Use PLM workflows to drive consistence change processes
• Track change problems & other metrics via PLM

Reference:
CIMData session and hands on experience

Thanks,
Anil