Jeff is the VP for Windchill Digital Thread. His team leads Navigate, Visualization, Windchill UI and Digital Product Traceability. Prior to joining PTC, Jeff spent 16 years implementing and using PLM, CAD and CAE at Industrial, High Tech & Consumer Products companies including leading the first Windchill PDMLink implementation in 2002. He was active in the PTC/USER community serving as Chair for the Windchill Solutions committee and on the Board of Directors for PTC/USER helping to bring voice of customer input together and create a community where people could network for tools and processes. Jeff attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Lehigh University.
Discrete manufacturers must design and deliver highly specific and variable product configurations, bring them to market fast—and repeat the cycle over and over. In this pressure cooker of market demand and customer expectation, it’s crucial that businesses master the process of change management if they’re to gain and maintain a competitive edge.
What is manufacturing change management?
Manufacturing change management is the execution of a consistent and systematic approach to the implementation of changes in product design or manufacturing processes. Effective change management minimizes disruption to the business and does so without compromising quality or efficiency. It’s a particularly critical priority if the potential benefits of innovation, whether in product or process, are to be quickly realized in the market.
Why is change management important in manufacturing?
Successful manufacturing initiatives rely on effective change management, in the first place, to adapt to market demands. The “market,” per se, is an ecosystem over which the business has little direct control, but which exerts more influence on decision-making than any other factor. In discrete manufacturing, adaptation to shifting demands is especially crucial. An organization equipped to accurately sense and rapidly exploit these shifts, while minimizing disruption, is one that’s flexible, responsive, and equipped to win. A strong change management strategy can effectively “future proof” your organization.
Other critical considerations reinforce the importance of change management. Overall operational efficiency can be enhanced through effective change management, which helps reduce or eliminate waste in time, effort, and materials. Quality standards are upheld, regulatory compliance improved, and business risks mitigated. Moreover, effective change management helps the manufacturer understand, generate, and deploy innovations in processes and technology.
What role does digitization play in manufacturing change management?
By fueling the capture and analysis of large volumes of information in real or near-real time, digitization of the manufacturing environment and its connection with the larger enterprise enables high-quality, data-driven decision-making. Predictive analytics, specifically, can help the team understand in advance the effect or impact of changes being contemplated.
Digitization also allows for the automation of change management processes, so they’re executed more accurately, and faster, than legacy methods allow for. Critically, digitization unlocks the potential of seamless, real-time, cross-enterprise communication. That helps all stakeholders, from design and engineering to purchasing and corporate management, to know about the changes that impact their domain, and act in a timely and effective manner.
What does the manufacturing change management process involve?
Manufacturing changes can originate from any of several vectors. As noted above, the enterprise may need to modify a product to address changing market demands. For processes underway, a member of the manufacturing team may identify an issue on the manufacturing floor requiring attention and a solution. Changes can also arise when a materials innovation—or, conversely, a supply-chain disruption—calls for a modification of material inputs.
Whatever the origin of the planned change, full digital documentation is critical. Proper documentation is needed to efficiently shepherd the change successfully through to implementation, as well as to feed information back to the various teams in engineering and elsewhere who need the information for current management and future planning. Typically, this documentation process is initiated and managed through a pair of standardized documents: the Manufacturing Change Request (MCR) and the Manufacturing Change Order (MCO).
Manufacturing Change Request (MCR)
The MCR is initiated by appropriate personnel once an issue requiring a change has been identified and the requestor(s) have a high level of confidence in the necessity for the change, or the value of the opportunity the change represents. It may involve request changes to the manufacturing process itself, materials inputs, or equipment.
Manufacturing Change Order (MCO)
Once the requested change has been adequately reviewed and properly validated, an MCO is issued approving the change, with detailed descriptions of the steps and objectives defining the change and the desired end-state. At this point, action is taken to implement the change.
Key considerations for an efficient manufacturing change management process
Modern manufacturing processes are complex enough during ongoing, stable operations. Changes complicate the situation even further, and their implications and effects must be smoothly propagated across the enterprise, both within and beyond manufacturing. When developing and maintaining the most efficient change management process, it’s always profitable to consider several key dynamics.
Strong collaboration between engineering and manufacturing Teams
Even in the most advanced technical manufacturing organizations, the most important dynamic is not technical—it’s personal. The strength of the relationships between the engineering and manufacturing teams can determine the success of any change, not to mention a culture that drives that success consistently.
Engineers need to spend time on the manufacturing floor, meeting line workers, observing line operations, and asking questions about what they see. These benefits work both ways: involving manufacturing teams in the design and engineering process can generate helpful insights on how best to design for manufacture. This integration of talent from each domain into the day-to-day work of the other can save time, money, and even fuel unexpected innovation.
Set up an effective communication model in your manufacturing change process
As powerful as it is to encourage in-person collaboration across departments, it’s certainly not practical for it to be the predominant form of interaction. Leaders should work to eliminate the friction from communication — about issues, ideas, and the status and success of changes underway or complete &nmash; by building strong systems that not only facilitate, but encourage, open discourse between teams.
Shorter manufacturing change cycles
Time is money; the shorter the manufacturing change cycle, the shorter the time to market, to revenue, to ROI. Managing change “traditionally,” with paper forms is cheap, easy—and dangerous. Without question, digital change management is the most effective approach to shortening cycle times.
A sound digital change management process ensures that neither departmental silos nor geographic boundaries will prevent the right people from getting the information they need, when they need it, in a form factor they can use to do their jobs well. All of which will compress the change cycle, while expanding the bottom line.
Best practices for manufacturing change management
Any initiative to master manufacturing change management in your organization can benefit from a couple of well-proven foundational principles and practices.
Create a detailed plan
It’s essential to engage in a comprehensive and detailed planning phase, in which project goals and objectives, resources, timing, and processes involved are documented. It’s also important to anticipate and evaluate potential risks. With proper planning, many can be mitigated in advance, bolstering the likelihood of long-term success.
Among the most critical planning decisions involve which modern technology solutions should be applied; digitization, as discussed above, is fundamental. Planners should consider leveraging other technologies according to their specific situation, including the internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and even, depending on the manufacturing environment, robotics.
Communicate with employees
All stakeholder groups should be consulted if they’re not on the planning team itself. As a practical, technical matter this will uncover critical considerations that might otherwise be overlooked, avoiding unpleasant surprises once the change management project is underway. As an organizational and personnel matter, this advance consultative approach will prepare the teams, set expectations, and encourage adoption. Helping the various parties understand and even take part in their counterparts’ work helps cultivate a culture open to change and innovation.
Conclusion
Markets are evolving more rapidly than ever, and navigating those markets is becoming more challenging by the day. To stay competitive, generate more revenue at better margins, and build a strong brand with customers, change management must be a top priority. Manufacturers who win will leverage resulting improvements, including increased flexibility, productivity, and innovation, to achieve and sustain the growth and profitability on which the enterprise depends.
Break Down Silos with Change Management
Learn how Volvo Construction Equipment faced the challenge of implementing change management across their entire organization
Read the Case Study