Engineering change management maturity assessment model with lean criteria for automotive supply chain: Journal of Engineering Design

Supplier relationships in the automotive industry have changed fundamentally in recent decades owing to trends such as less vertical
integration, global sourcing, simultaneous engineering, and the
Internet. Suppliers have become much more important in terms of
both production and development. The ability to manage engineering
changes (EC) efficiently and reliably reflects the capability of the
whole supply chain. EC is a modification of a product’s component
after the product has entered serial production. This paper reviews
engineering change management (ECM) and the application of lean
methods into the product development process. The conclusions
from the literature review are summarised in a model for assessing
the maturity level of lean ECM. The model is tested within eight automotive component and system suppliers of different sizes, from 196
up to 77000 employees. The result of the survey is a comprehensive
overview of ECM status with automotive suppliers. An important
conclusion is that ECM should begin already during product development
process. Knowledge management was recognised as a key
enabler for reducing the number of ECs.