Collaborative engineering: A framework for engineering-to-order companies

This paper aims at conceptualizing and developing a framework for the management of engineering changes (ECs) which are usually modification in the forms, fits, materials, dimensions etc. of the products and constituent components in the engineer-to-order companies. Engineering changes induce a series of downstream changes due to the coupling between multiple departments and responsibilities. Previous investigation conducted by the authors and other researchers have shown that paper based and standalone computerized engineering change management (ECM) systems offer limited support to anticipate, recognize, evaluate, resolve, control, document, and learn from past engineering changes which significantly affect the teamwork and close communication. This paper proposes to establish an IT based collaborative decision support framework that supports ECM procedures and activities which is aimed at providing accurate and timely information sharing, simultaneous data access while assisting managers for analyzing and selecting the controls of engineering change orders. This paper consist of two main components, a description for engineering change management and further presents a IT based collaborative decision support framework for effective management of engineering changes in engineer-to-order companies.