Purpose

• To assure that any suspected design problem, design document problem, design suggestion or cost reduction recognized anywhere in the division/company/group is brought as quickly as possible to the attention of the management and the cognizant engineer.
• To assure that Design Engineering responds to the requester in a reasonable period of time as to whether or not engineering will take ownership of the problem or suggestion.
• To reject as many requests as practical since we do not have unlimited engineering manpower.
• To specify the Request for Change Process in a flow diagram.

Applicability

• Applies to all product “problems” for all design cognizant engineers related to this CM function.
• Is not intended to apply to manufacturing process problems, marketing literature problems, or service or manual problems.

Policy / Practice

• Any employee may originate a change request whenever they have a suspected problem, cost reduction or idea concerning the product design or the design documentation.
• The employee with online access may originate a Change Request online. To obtain a description of what must be filled in a form box, place the cursor on the box in question and depress the F1 key or go to the menu “Request Process – Completion Instructions.”
• Any employee who is not online may obtain a hard copy form and form instructions (ideally on the back of the form) from the CM function for origination of a Change Request. The completed form should be given directly to CM.
• No signatures, other than the originator, are required in order to submit a Change Request.
• If the employee has obtained the concurrence of the cognizant engineer and is capable of completing the Change Order with the required mark-ups, etc., they should not fill out a Change Request but rather go directly to the Change Order.
• If accepted, the Change Request may later be rejected by cancellation of the Change Order. If this should occur, the CM function will notify the requester and give the reason for cancellation.
• A Management Request Team will include a high-level VP or director from Engineering, Operations and Supply Chain in order to reject as many requests as practical (see Team in Request Standard).
• All requests will be responded to (as to whether or not Engineering takes ownership of the problem) within three workdays on average. Some may take less time and some more time. If the requester wishes to know the status, they may contact CM (Status Report should also be online).
• If your request has been rejected and you are not satisfied with the reasons given, contact CM to state your case. CM will investigate and respond. If you still aren’t satisfied, see your manager.
• CM, the Cognizant Engineer and the Request Management Team will respond (take ownership of the problem or not) to requests in a timely manner. They will determine which requests will be submitted to the cognizant engineer according these standards.
• The Cognizant Engineer must use the team in the request process as required by the standard (see Team in Request Standard).
• Document Control will track all requests and sort out non-design issues. Non-design issues shall be forwarded to the responsible function and the requester notified that Design Engineering is not responsible and who is.

Procedure

• See the Request Process Flow Diagram attached to this standard.

Primary Responsibility

• The CM function will track all Change Requests and report to the senior management as well as other affected management as to the average process time, volume and requests in process in aged sequence — oldest first — titled Request Status Report.
• The CM function will be responsible for keeping this standard current.
• The CM manager may take exception to this standard by noting in the change request form why that was done.

Authorization