ENGINEERING CHANGE ADMINISTRATION - THE KEY ISSUES

This case study was carried out at the European Trucks Transmission Division of Eaton Corporation, and provides some useful insights into the relatively unexplored issue of engineering change (EC). Poor EC control was identified as a major contributing factor to low bill of material accuracy, and this was the main reason for instigating research into development of the EC procedure. Among the main findings are: people often confuse the reason for an EC with its purpose; organizations faced with many problematic ECs should investigate the adequacy of their design abilities and procedures; the EC classification scheme should be by both type (impact of the change within the organization) and grade (urgency of the change); all but the simplest ECs require more than one determinant to be considered when deciding the effectivity date; and feedback is essential to the success of an EC procedure.