Change Management (ECO/ECN)

Change Management (ECO/ECN) is the controlled process for proposing, evaluating, approving, and implementing changes to released product data. It walks a request through Engineering Change Request (ECR), Engineering Change Order (ECO) for the technical change itself, and Engineering Change Notice (ECN) to inform impacted stakeholders.

Scope

A typical workflow includes capturing the proposed change and its rationale, impact analysis (parts, BOMs, documents, suppliers, certifications, tooling), Change Review Board approval, implementation in the affected items with revision bumps, and notification to manufacturing, suppliers, and field service. In regulated industries it is the audit-trail backbone for compliance.

Relationships (see sidebar)

• Realizes Product Quality, Regulatory Compliance, and Digital Transformation.
• Supported by logical capabilities such as Workflow Engine and ALM Traceability.
• Tightly coupled with Configuration Management and Release Management.