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Managing the Process of Engineering Change Orders: The Case of the Climate Control System in Automobile Development
Author(s) -
Terwiesch Christian,
Loch Christoph H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of product innovation management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1540-5885
pISSN - 0737-6782
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5885.1620160
Subject(s) - process (computing) , process management , lead (geology) , climate change , business , control (management) , computer science , operations management , risk analysis (engineering) , change management (itsm) , lead time , work in process , marketing , engineering , ecology , geomorphology , artificial intelligence , lean manufacturing , biology , geology , operating system
Engineering change orders (ECOs) are part of almost every development process, consuming a significant part of engineering capacity and contributing heavily to development and tool costs. Many companies use a support process to administer ECOs, which fundamentally determines ECO costs. This administrative process encompasses the emergence of a change (e.g., a problem or a market‐driven feature change), the management approval of the change, up to the change's final implementation. Despite the tremendous time pressure in development projects in general and in the ECO process in particular, this process can consume several weeks, several months, and in extreme cases even over 1 year. Based on an in‐depth case study of the climate control system development in a vehicle, we identify five key contributors to long ECO lead times: a complex approval process, snowballing changes, scarce capacity and congestion, setups and batching, and organizational issues. Based on the case observations, we outline a number of improvement strategies an organization can follow to reduce its ECO lead times. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.