Change management

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The change management (also change management or ÄM ( engineering change management )) describes functions and processes that are established in an organization in order to make changes to products of the organization in a controlled and documented manner.

The core element of the change system is the change request . After it has been systematically recorded, it goes through an approval process. After approval, the changes are implemented on a specified target date. Change management can relate to external products of the organization as well as internal products, especially documentation. In terms of time, change management plays an important role during the entire product life cycle , i.e. from the invention to the end of production (EOP) . Coordination prior to the start of production (SOP) is particularly critical , as development times continue to shorten and work is increasingly carried out in parallel. This coordination is part of the ramp-up management .

With the well-planned change in organizations dealing change management .

Change management in manufacturing companies

When developing products, the parts list usually defines the parts that go into an end product. A change request describes which changes are to be made to a parts list item and the associated CAD model or the associated partial drawing and which other parts list items are to be taken into account.

Changes are managed in construction projects in a product data management system.

Change management in projects

In the context of project management , change management means the systematic management of changes in the work breakdown structure (PSP) .

Due to new requirements, discovered errors or newly acquired knowledge, it may prove necessary to adapt plans that have already been made. The configuration management regulates the formal process from the application through its approval to the plan adjustment.

A change cycle can include the following steps:

  • Recording of the change request, e.g. B. in the form of an amendment request
  • Analysis of the scope of change (with the help of the respective specialist departments)
  • Estimated effort (material, resources, finances, time, etc.)
  • Risk assessment
  • Decision on the release of the change, commissioning the implementation in the specialist departments
  • Implementation and documentation of the change
  • Qualification and testing of the changed product
  • Release of the new product
  • possibly transfer to production
  • Completion of the change cycle

Mastery of the change effort

The effort of the change system increases with the complexity of the product due to interactions in the system . Interactions arise at interfaces between modules.

The effort in change management can be significantly reduced through strategic modularization with the aim of minimal interfaces between the modules.

Since the modularization is defined in the construction , the primary levers for reducing effort can be found there.

Change management in the automotive industry

In the automotive industry in particular, OEMs sometimes have more than 1,000 change projects per month, which can affect around 7,000 internal and external partners. The solutions for technical documentation and implementation of a change project range from (paper) forms and Excel tables to specialized IT solutions that contain company-specific components. Due to the complexity and variety of vehicles, the change projects can be differentiated according to their importance and scope according to:

The different change projects have a significantly different design and manufacturing effort and therefore also a different time requirement require adapted change processes in the product development process . A simple technical change, e.g. B. the replacement of a simple screw with a higher quality screw can be completed within weeks, while the change of the product to and through a new product variant can take many months.

Often the different solutions are not compatible with each other and there are processing breaks between the different partners involved. Then data on the change plans have to be entered manually several times. The specific different approaches of an engineer or a businessman also result in processing loops for finding a solution, since misunderstandings arise between the two areas. The distribution of relevant information on different management systems (change management, technical documents, financial calculations) and partners (OEMs, suppliers) makes the reconstruction of the decision-making process difficult or impossible.

By harmonizing and standardizing the sub-processes of a change project, the processing time between the partners can be reduced and the process quality and reliability increased. This also makes the process quality more transparent for all partners. For this purpose, the VDA (VDA 4965), the ProSTEP iViP eV (PSI 3-2) and the SASIG have developed recommendations on how engineering change management is to be implemented in various use cases.

literature

  • L.-O Gusig, A. Kruse and others: Vehicle development in automobile construction. Hanser Verlag, Munich 2010.
  • W. Herlyn: PPS in the automotive industry. Hanser Verlag, Munich 2012.
  • U. Lindemann, R. Reichwald: Integrated change management. Springer Verlag, Berlin 1998.
  • G. Schuh, W. Stölzle, F. Straube (Eds.): Successfully implementing ramp-up management in the automotive industry. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2008.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ W. Herlyn: The scheduling of the series use of products and technical changes in the automotive industry from a logistical point of view. In: 20th Magdeburg Logistic Days. Conference proceedings, Fraunhofer IFF (Ed.), Magdeburg 2015, p. 66.