Engineering Change Management

Manufacturers are repeatedly faced with input from customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders which, directly or indirectly, advocates for product modifications. This input triggers internal engineering change control processes that are complex in nature, involving many objects, tasks, and people who may be scattered across several departments and locations. Successfully executing these engineering changes is a matter of absorbing this input into an engineering change management process which manages the objects affected by the change, and routes change-related information and tasks to the agents responsible for the affected objects.

With all your product data in one system, which could be an engineering change management software, you will have complete transparency in your change management engineering procedures. This software will fully enable you to understand the design, manufacturing, and supply chain impact of engineering changes before they are implemented and enforce best-practice and workflow-driven end-to-end business processes. This facilitates better business decisions and ensures that drawings and related documentation always reflect the latest changes. The employment of engineering change management software effectively improves the efficiency and accuracy of the engineering change control process, thereby enhancing overall product development and lifecycle management.

BluestarPLM Integrations Engineering Change Management e1643621478469

Key Benefits

Know the cost and feasibility of engineering changes

An overview of the downstream impact enables you to take more informed and cost-beneficial decisions related to engineering change orders. Save time by not having to identify the impact of change manually.

Enforce best practice change procedures

Your entire organization operating in a shared CAD+PLM+ERP environment will abide by formal change procedures for increased quality and consistency.

Shorten change cycles

Ensure the timely phase-in of new revisions in Dynamics 365 F&SCM with improved responsiveness towards input from customers and colleagues.

Reduce errors in the change process

Easier manage and monitor engineering changes with an overview of the complete change history and latest updates, so production will always have access to the latest revisions for reducing costly errors in production.

Increased collaboration and coordination

With both ERP and PLM change-related data shared across engineering and operations, you will be able to coordinate multiple changes simultaneously with greater precision.

Increased engineering productivity

Eliminate redundant administrative processes that accompanies engineering changes when all product data is connected in a single system – Dynamics 365 F&SCM.

Complete data transparency

With both ERP and PLM change-related data shared across engineering and operations, people will be informed and prepared to handle change requests so you can spend less time getting stakeholders up to speed during meetings.

Explore the functionalities

  • Promote engineering changes through the entire change cycle across CAD, PLM and ERP, all the way from request through the actual implementation of the change in Dynamics 365 F&SCM.

  • CAD+PLM+ERP in one system provides complete transparency in the cost and logistic feasibility of engineering changes and ensures that affected products and associated documents are revision controlled and always up-to-date during the entire change process.

Discover the ‘Bluestar ECM’ Product Sheet

Download the product sheet to discover how Bluestar PLM’s fully integrated engineering change management functionality empowers users to understand the design and cost impact of engineering changes before implementation. This capability enhances business decision-making and ensures that drawings and related documentation always reflect the latest updates.

Key Features

Integration with Dynamics 365 ECM

The interconnectivity between Bluestar PLM – and Dynamics 365 ECM allows creating change requests in Dynamics 365 F&SCM, completing the engineering changes in Bluestar PLM, then finalizing the change with the manufacturing changes in the Dynamics 365 F&SCM. This not only ensures that the whole change is covered within a single flow, but also improves the traceability and manageability of multi-revision product data without losing any of the known Bluestar PLM functionality.

End-to-end change management

Provides an integrated platform for creating, planning and implementing product changes while taking all dependencies in Sales, Engineering, Purchasing, Manufacturing, and Service into account.

Workflow automation

Drives ECO processes spanning engineering and operations with cross-functional workflow automation. A graphical drag and drop design engine allows for the easy creation of best-practice workflow templates.

Revision trail and comparison

Stores a complete revision history of Dynamics 365 F&SCM items, BOMs and the associated drawings and technical documentation. Enables the comparison of indented BOM revisions.

Affected designs analysis

Generates a list of how other product designs are affected by a product change.

“What-if” scenarios

Enables ECO cost and feasibility calculations to help make better change decisions.

Mass replace

Easily replace or delete a part wherever it is used on other BOMs.

Change impact analysis

Analyses the impact a product change has on routes and work-in-progress (sales orders, production orders, purchase orders, inventories, etc.).

Release control

Advanced control of when and to which Dynamics 365 F&SCM companies revisions are released.

Other features inside the Engineering Change Management suite

Enables users to identify the impact an engineering change will have on other product designs expressed as a list of affected items.

Provides an overview of on-hand, on-order and in-production quantities to reveal the downstream impact of a change.

Enables the calculation of change costs based on the Where-used transaction analysis and user defined effectivity parameters such as Use up stock, By next production order, Immediately, etc.

Calculates the forecasted material cost of a change based on the difference in material cost of current and new revisions and Dynamics 365 F&SCM forecasts.

Analyzes which production routes are impacted and may need revision based on which routes are associated with the affected items.

A flexible setup matrix allows administrators to set up the desired level of complexity of engineering change procedures to facilitate everything from fast track engineering changes needed in one-off productions to extensive change procedures necessary in high volume production with greater change impact and risk.

Adds item and BOM revision control to Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM. This means that items and BOMs can be sold, purchased, stocked and manufactured with revision-specific traceability.

A flexible setup matrix allows administrators to set up the desired level of complexity of engineering change procedures to facilitate everything from fast track engineering changes needed in one-off productions to extensive change procedures necessary in high volume production with greater change impact and risk.

Extend Bluestar PLM’s ECM capabilities to the ERP system with Dynamics 365 ECM module. The interconnectivity between the systems allows for creating change requests in Dynamics 365 F&SCM, completing the engineering changes in Bluestar PLM and then finalizing the change with the manufacturing changes in the ERP. This not only ensures that the whole change is covered within a single flow, but also improves the traceability and manageability of multi-revision product data without losing any of the known Bluestar PLM functionality.

Enables users to compare any revision of a BOM to any revision of any other BOM. Color-codes indicate the line-by-line differences on multiple BOM levels. For efficient comparison of large BOMs, a “Show only difference” option provides an isolated overview of the difference only.

Automatically notifies stakeholders of pending changes to warn downstream users of planned changes.

Allows for sequential or parallel approvals requiring electronic signatures.

A complete revision-specific change log provides full historic traceability on items, BOMs and documents in terms of what was changed, why it was changed, who changed it, etc.

Enables automated revision of all impacted designs (affected items) and associated drawings in a single batch job. As a result, it is not necessary to revise every single affected item manually. The change will automatically take effect where needed.

Define changes using either BOM redlining for BOM-centric organizations.

Define and manage the last stages of the (electrical) components life. When to stop marketing, selling or rework sustaining the product. End-of-life-announcement (EOLA); End-of-sale” (EOS) Last order date (LOD) and end-of-life (EOL).

Enables different priorities to be assigned to engineering change records.

Promote engineering changes from change request through change proposal, change order, implemented, and closed.

Manages an approved manufacturers list and facilitates manufacturer changes.

Open production orders; sales orders; purchase orders and inventory control through the path of changes.

Analyze change order statistics using native Dynamics 365 F&SCM reporting capabilities.

Enables the graphical comparison of BOM revisions in 3D or dimensional comparison of single part revisions. 3D Blueview extension module required.

BOM redlining provides a quick overview of how a revision of a BOM is different from the previous revision.