One of the least understood and yet most valuable capabilities of modern ERP systems is an electronic engineering change order (ECO). Electronic ECOs provide tremendous benefits to manufacturing organizations. They can help reduce costs associated with engineering changes and make small and mid-sized manufacturers more efficient. Here are six important benefits of electronic ECO systems.
Speed
Once the need for a change is identified, the approval process gets underway quickly without having to wait to collate and assemble multiple copies of information packets for each approver. All approvers can be notified of the proposed change at once, and they all have visibility to questions or comments so there is no delay.
Since all approvers receive notification about a pending ECO simultaneously, the approval process is usually much shorter than with paper-based systems where approvals must happen sequentially. This helps to shorten the time between when the need for a change is identified and when the change is implemented, which reduces the possibility of manufacturing poor quality or unsafe products.
In addition, an electronic ECO system helps disseminate change information quickly to all stakeholders so there is less chance that anyone will miss important changes.
Accuracy
Integrated electronic ECO functionality ensures that BOMs and product documentation is always up to date. The information is passed to production right away so that products are manufactured to current specs. Planning systems automatically calculate new material requirements so that parts are ordered on time, reducing production shortages for more efficient operations and reducing expediting by smoothing out the supply chain.
Environmental impact
Most non-electronic ECO systems require voluminous paper packets consisting of many documents. These packets require time and resources to prepare, as documents must be printed and the packets manually assembled for routing. In many cases, each approver receives a separate packet, which just increases the need for paper and the time to begin the approval process.
Regulatory impact
Many industries today are subject to some form of regulatory oversight, which usually requires process and product documentation. Electronic ECO systems ensure a complete and accurate history of all product and process changes. Paper based ECOs are subject to being lost, misplaced or ignored, but that is not a concern with electronic systems since they track all ECOs.
Having access to a complete product change history can simplify certifications and help reduce the time and resources expended on regulatory audits. The electronic signatures in electronic ECO systems comply with regulatory requirements and a complete product change history also helps to minimize the scope of possible recalls by providing an easily traceable repository of product changes.
Eliminates waste
The increased velocity of electronic ECOs means that information about changes is available to production faster than with paper ECOs, reducing the time in which non-conforming products are produced. By minimizing the amount of non-conforming product created, the amount of potential rework and scrap is also reduced, helping to keep costs low and reducing the likelihood that potentially unsafe or sub-par quality product reaches the customer.
Improves quality
By ensuring that necessary changes are incorporated quickly, any changes meant to eliminate safety or reliability issues will be implemented faster. This helps to ensure that customers receive better quality products. If quality issues arise after the product is in the field, the ECO history also helps to identify the point at which the cause was introduced into the product design. This information can feed into the company’s CAPA system so that the root cause of issues can be identified.
