What Is an Engineering Change Notice?
For discrete manufacturers today, the dynamics of market, supply chain, regulatory and technological change are evolving at higher velocity, and with more complexity, than ever before. Only by managing this change with efficiency can manufacturers remain competitive. To execute on a coherent, effective and efficient change management vision, manufacturing leaders should seek three high-priority outcomes: highly scalable change processes, improvements in productivity and planning, and enhancements in the quality and reliability of decision-making.
As evolving requirements generated by these priorities and change dynamics filter down to the production level, accurate and actionable change documentation processes are mission critical. The engineering change notice (ECN) documents the inception of the change management process, laying a foundation for successful results in the manufactured product.
What is an engineering change notice (ECN)?
The ECN, normally created by the engineering department, is a document that captures and details proposed changes to the design or manufacture of a product, or an update to the manufacturing processes themselves. It is normally issued in response to an engineering change request (or ECR).
What are the key elements of an engineering change notice?
Refocusing our attention on the ECN as the intermediate change management step “between” the ECR and the engineering change order (or ECO), four components are generally included in an effective ECN.
Description of the change
Once a problem or opportunity is identified, its “symptoms” are clearly documented, evaluated by appropriate personnel, and a formal decision is made about whether to investigate the symptoms, or explore the suggested enhancement. Through investigation of the documented issues, the root cause is identified. This work will include the identification of relevant design modifications, parts, or documents.
Supporting documents
Those key documents are then aggregated and assembled to best communicate the implications of the proposed change to affected stakeholders. Drawings, CAD files, work instructions, cost and resource analyses, and more are carried forward from the ECR stage and supplemented according to findings and inputs gathered up to that point.
Workflow automation
Mapping and automation of the workflows defined (or redefined) by the ECN is crucial to properly inform the ECO and subsequent approval process. The new workflow will encompass all critical elements of the production process—employees, their tasks, required decision gates and approvals, as well as process status and history. Accurate implementation at this stage is a critical step in managing complex changes, and the ways in which those changes propagate through an organization.
Change configuration
Properly configuring all the changes that result from this ECN process, including but not limited to those affecting workflow automation, is fundamental to final change execution. Sound configuration not only gets the manufactured product and manufacturing process where it needs to be, according to carefully managed feedback and approval processes, but also yields positive business results enterprise wide.
What’s the purpose of an engineering change notice?
The purpose of an ECN is to communicate the proposed changes to all stakeholders potentially affected within the manufacturing enterprise and, if appropriate, to customers and other external parties like supply chain partners. It comprises a formal request for those stakeholders to review the issue, consider the proposed change, assess its implications, and approve according to the results of that assessment.
During this stage, departments like manufacturing, purchasing, quality control, and even sales and marketing can collaborate to consider the rationale and various impacts of the proposed change.
What’s the difference between ECN and ECR?
It’s important to understand the difference between the ECN and the document that follows it sequentially in the engineering change management process, the engineering change request or ECR. An ECR is used to gain agreement on the business and technical justification for the change. This allows the stakeholders to understand the context of the change to the product and processes to determine to proceed or not with the change.
The ECN defines the implementation required to deliver the updates to product design and processes. It captures the detailed work done by the stakeholders that can be reviewed and validated for releasing to the enterprise. This can include a range of work from CAD and BOM to manufacturing process planning and technical publications. Upon release the updated change data is provided to the enterprise, including the ability to push this ERP and other downstream systems.
What are the steps of an engineering change process?
There are several commonly recognized, logically sequenced steps to the general engineering change process. Note that the following subordinate process phases each include corollary stages of creation, review, and approval.
1. Problem report
A Problem Report is used to identify an issue or opportunity with a product or process. These may be identified by any stakeholder: an internal team, a customer, or even an end user. The team can then determine whether or not to proceed with to a change or if some other disposition is appropriate to respond to the Problem Report.
2. Engineering change request
An engineering change request (or ECR) precedes the ECN as described above and is the document by which the concerned party requests that a change be considered. It is used to review and align on the business and technical justification for a change. It’s how the change management process is launched. The enterprise (or those departments potentially impacted) can then review and collectively decide whether to move on to the next step, the ECN.
3. Engineering change notice
An engineering change notice or ECN results from an ECR evaluation process when all parties agree on the change. The ECN is used to define the implementation plan needed to update the product and process deliverables to the enterprise. Implementation plans can be created from templates enabling teams to quickly and easily build a set of tasks from common patterns. It can be as simple as one change task or have many change tasks that have relationships enabling the teams to effectively collaborate on the work being done. The ECN provides the overall execution, review and validation cycle for the change as it is delivered to the enterprise.
4. Change tasks
Change tasks are the implementation steps for an ECN. This comprises a specific set of actions required for effective execution of the proposed change. Change Tasks can be a simple single task for an ECN or a range of tasks for range of work that needs to be done. Change tasks break down those actions specifically among the roles or teams—the “assignees”—who will need to execute them to realize the proposed change. By allocating expectations and responsibilities as clearly and discretely as possible, change tasks fuel a more manageable, measurable, accountable, and trackable change process overall.
5. Final approval
Once the work is completed on the ECN and the related Change Tasks there is a final review and validation of the updated/new product and process data. The ECN will now be released making the deliverables available to the enterprise. This includes detail all the BOM, parts, components, assemblies, processes, and related documentation to be changed, as well as support documentation like updated CAD files or manufacturing work instructions (MWIs). This data can also be shared to downstream systems such as ERP and MES in either an automated or manual methodology.
Picking the right PLM platform
Ultimately, the successful implementation of changes defined in an ECN, and the success of change management processes more broadly, will be largely determined by the PLM platform on which the changes are being managed. Choosing the right PLM platform will support changes that meet wide array of processes, from the simple to the complex. It will be easy to tailor its capabilities for the specific needs of the enterprise—according to product attributes, life cycle, layouts, and more, enabling the execution of changes across the entire digital thread.