Engineering Documentation Control — sometimes called Configuration Management or Product Lifecycle Management — is a key ingredient to world-class product manufacturing.

Most product manufacturing companies suffer from the “wall syndrome.” The “manufacturing side” bought ERP/Supply Chain tools; the “engineering side” bought CAD/PDM/PLM. Those software systems do not generally “talk” to each other. The engineering folks are, by and large, analytical and cautious (Ready … Aim … Fire); the manufacturing folks are, by and large, shakers, movers, and doers (Fire-Aim, Fire-Aim, Fire-Aim). The people often do not communicate very well. The manufacturing folks say that engineering “throws it over the wall.” The development engineering folks say that you cannot find anyone who knows how the product will be processed. This situation often results in a huge “wall” or “gap” between engineering and operations. A significant part of bridging the gap is to develop “make sense” standards.

There is a very scary tendency in industry today; after the loose identification of a problem, the tendency is to seek a software application solution. App mania!

Software programs may help after you understand the job that needs to be done and what process flow is best for you. Something more substantial (than software) is needed between engineering and operations — Configuration Management. This author may use various terms but will most often use “CM,” as that is the term which is becoming most used in industry.

In order to achieve best-in-class CM it is necessary to document what you do, do what you document and, preferably, continuously improve what you do. Improve what you do by continuous improvement or by reengineering the processes. Of course, brand new startups can leap directly into best in class with these standards.

Yes, there is a gap between engineering and the rest of the company. With this manual you can bridge that gap. It also requires a dedicated and driven CM manager and/or engineering services director.

There are many commercial, military and agency standards — enough to boggle the mind. They will tell you what the expectations are for the “outcome” they desire — but give little help in the “how to.” This manual is directed at how to achieve best-in-class processes which are “make sense,” fast, accurate, efficient, effective, measured and well understood.

With this manual, you have the best of the best management practices for the configuration management processes. They also go a long way toward satisfying Total Quality Management, FDA, GMP, Lean CM and ISO/QS/AS 9XXX process documentation requirements. The one requirement common to all those standards is to document the processes and to do what you document.

This manual has been under development and improvement for many years. It was sold privately by the author for several years. Many copies have been used by engineering documentation control (EDC)/configuration management (CM) managers by editing to suit their particular product manufacturing environment.

This Standards Manual should be an invaluable guide in developing your standards. It will save you many man-hours of research, development, writing, form design and procedural flow design time.

Further understanding of these practices can be obtained by reading the Engineering Documentation Control Handbook and/or CM for Senior Managers.

• These standards are designed to maximize the benefits of a fast, accurate and well-understood CM system which will:
• Help get new products into the market faster. Reduce delivery time for customized product.
• Make happier customers because they will see the new option, change or feature they requested much quicker.
• Reduce significantly the manufacturing “bone piles” of rework and scrap material.
• Improve Bill of Material accuracy and save the corresponding material and parts costs.
• Eliminate multiple Bill of Material databases and save the costs of maintaining the databases and eliminating the risks associated with multiple databases.
• Reduce field maintenance, retrofit and repair cost.
• Reduce ERP/PLM run time. Avoid weekend computer runs that spill into Mondays.
• Make you know exactly what is non-interchangeable in each product and in every product change as required.
• Improve the understanding and communications between engineering and manufacturing and others.
• Clarify responsibilities to eliminate finger pointing.
• Save wear and tear on CM technicians, configuration managers, master schedulers, and engineers.
• Help you sort out changes that are not needed or aren’t cost effective.
• Cut distribution and save paper and printing costs.
• Comply with commercial, government agency, and international standards.
• Qualify as a best-in-class producer.

These standards are especially designed to allow fast processing of releases, requests, and changes. Why is process speed so very important? These processes are “just paper/online processing,” how can speed matter? Other than saying “time is money” what specifically do fast processes contribute to improved profits?

The best way to answer these questions is to ask more questions. It is a good idea to have 20-minute meetings with the people involved in the process and ask them to brainstorm why speed is important!

The questions to ask:

• How fast/slow is the current process? Perhaps 20 or 40 days just in the CM portion of the change process? (Not an unusual condition.)
• Is there more than a few hours of “hands on time” to process a change?
• How fast might this portion of the process be? Perhaps 5 days?
• What happens during the 15 to 35 unnecessary days?
• What are suppliers doing? Building items that will have to be returned, reworked or scrapped?
• What is the shop doing? Building items that will have to be reworked or scrapped?
• What is assembly and test doing? Working on items that will have to be reworked or scrapped?
• Is the line or part of the line “down”? Do we want to keep it that way for 15 to 35 extra days?
• Will the change be retrofit? Will we ship 15 to 35 more days worth of product to be retrofit in the field or factory returned?
• What if the change is a real cost reduction? Should we ship 15 to 35 days worth of product at the higher cost?
• Did the customer request the fix or feature? Should we make the customer wait 15 to 35 unnecessary days to get it?
• Is the customer site down? Would you like to be the field service person taking the heat during 15 to 35 extra days?
• What is 15 to 35 days of customer good will worth?

Yes, fast accurate and well-understood processes are key to company profitability. In one company, a five day thru-put time was achieved while the engineering and operations process times were also reduced.

A dedicated, motivated CM manager is also key to profitability and to bridging the gap between Design Engineering and Operations. For that reason, the CM manager’s job description should be addressed early on in any process improvement/redesign/reengineer effort. A suggested job description is in Chapter I – Company EDC/CM Policy.