Engineering Change Management

Benefits of Engineering Change Management in Arena

Advanced engineering change management visibility

Arena provides visibility into product changes so everyone from suppliers to production is operating from the same version of the product master record.

Collaborative product development

Even if your engineering change processes are unique and your organization is geographically distributed, Arena provides the flexibility and transparency you need to support collaborative product development and ensure accurate hand-off from design to manufacturing.

Improved time to market

Arena decreases engineering change order cycle time through workflow automation and change control board visibility which in turn accelerates time to market. Ruckus Wireless decreased engineering change order cycle times by 70% using Arena… Learn more.

Details of Engineering Change Management in Arena

• Engineering Change Order (ECO) detail tracking: Consistently track engineering change order information such as originator, item, reason for change, lifecycle status, effectivity date, implementation status, and completion date.
• Automatic change order numbering: Track unlimited types of change orders (e.g., ECO, MCO) with user-defined workflows and review boards. Define tracking categories that support intelligent numbering and simplify change order identification.
• File attachments: Add any number of attachments in any format to provide additional details and instructions about the Engineering Change Order (ECO) or its implementation.

• Custom attributes: Configure an unlimited number of custom, searchable attributes and tailor your change order forms for specific business requirements.
• Lifecycle stage support: View dynamic graphical representations of ECO status as well as available actions and outcomes for any lifecycle stage. View common-sense lifecycle rules to help determine the proper action to perform.
• Engineering change order progress tracking: At a glance, view approval deadlines, progress and requested / required actions.
• Business rule enforcement: Enforce common-sense rules to ensure change orders are effectively managed throughout their lifecycle.
• Review boards and routings: Configure the proper approval process and reviewer involvement across each stage. Add approvers as needed outside of predefined routings, and merge review boards as needed for adhoc reviews.
• Multiple routing options: Select from multiple routing options to accommodate the amount of flexibility you want end users or administrators to have in setting the appropriate workflow approval steps and participants for a particular change order or category of change order.
• Supplier access: Automatically notify suppliers any time one of their parts is affected by a change order, and selectively include them in collaborative approval process workflows.
• Document implementation: Track the implementation of the Engineering Change Order (ECO) with files and notes. Allow suppliers to add their implementation information through special editing privileges.
• Confidential file protection: Mark any file as private, hiding it from all supplier users, even if they have access to the change order.
• Change order completion: after a change has been processed, mark it as completed to signify no further work is required and, if desired, exclude it from future searches.
• Set approval stages: Require approvals at lower stages before routing changes to higher levels in the organization.
• Minimum approval requirements: Determine minimum approval requirements for each reviewer role.
• Notifications and reminders: Automatically queue and send change order review notifications, reminders, and pending expiration notices, both inside Arena and via email.
• Proxy voting: Enable delegation of change order voting if a reviewer is not available in the specified time frame.
• BOM redlining: Easily identify changes between revisions of an assembly and subassemblies related to a specific change order.
• Parent identification: Easily view affected assemblies for items added to a change order, and mitigate blind revisioning by notifying subscribed users that a change to an item will affect parent assemblies.
• Track implementation: Users implementing the ECO can notify others of their progress by setting an implementation status that's visible throughout the workspace.
• Material disposition tracking: Capture material disposition by material location and set its effectivity date at the item level, either for immediate-on-approval or for future use.
• Custom disposition fields: Set company-specific fields, such as location and disposition action, to reflect your disposition requirements.
• Deviation support: Use temporary change orders for deviations, including stacked deviations.
• Optional real-time voice and text chat: Instantly initiate a collaborative voice conference or text session using Skype Software with selected change control board members. For text chat, you can save the transcript as a part of the product record.

• Design & Supply Chain Collaboration
• Engineering Change Request
• See all features