Engineering Change Management (ECM) Internationalization

2008 - 2010

One of the main objectives of the automotive industry is to reduce lead times in the product development process while at the same time increasing quality. It is therefore crucial that changes be communicated to and implemented by those involved in development, planning and production as promptly as possible according to a defined change process (Engineering Change Management (ECM)).

In 2007, after five years of work, the ECM Project Group, in its previous form, was brought to a successful close. The results achieved speak for themselves.

The specification VDA 4965 (Version 2.0) provides an overview of the processes required to implement ECM. It describes the ECM reference process, its modeling and the underlying partner model. It also describes the basic principles for the corresponding subprocesses.

The recommendation VDA 4965-1 supports the communication of change requests and decisions relating to these requests. It is based on VDA 4965 and defines an ECR reference process which allows the neutral synchronization of the internal processes of the partners involved on the basis of ECR messages. It thus provides efficient support for ECR interaction scenarios (IS) relevant to industry.

Comparable with VDA 4965-1, the ProSTEP iViP Recommendation PSI3-2 supports the communication of change orders. It describes the required ECO reference process, the associated messages and the supported ECO interaction scenarios between the partners involved.

The objective of the ECM Internationalization project group is to internationalize the results achieved in ECM at SASIG level.

Work is performed in close cooperation with the PDM IF, which provides the ECR Implementation Guideline.