Engineering change orders
Engineering change orders provide a structured process for you to make changes to engineering products. You can create change orders by using change order requests or you can create a new one.
To include multiple products on the engineering change order, follow any of these steps:
Select products manually.
Use the BOM to include child items.
Use a Where-used search to include the parent item for a BOM line.
After the proposed changes have been completed on the page, you can automate the review and approval process by using the workflows, as discussed. Whether your company chooses to process engineering change orders directly after it's approved, as part of a workflow, or as a manual step, when the change order is processed, the product's engineering data will be updated.
Engineering change orders in engineering or operational companies
Depending on the type of legal entity in which you are creating the change order, whether an engineering or operational company, the product data that you can change varies, for example:
For engineering change orders in an engineering company, you can make basic changes to the engineering data. For example, you can create new versions of a product, change a product's structure through the BOM, and change engineering attribute values. For each affected product, select one of the following values in the Impact field:
None - Update the existing product version (in-version update).
New version - Create a new version that is based on the selected product version.
New product - Create a new product based on the selected product version.
New variant - Create a new variant of the item based on the selected product version. The BOM and route information will be copied.
For engineering change orders in an operational company, you can change the logistical data of the product. For example, you can enrich the existing BOM with settings for sourcing, add local routes or local BOMs, and even enrich a BOM by adding new BOM lines for local packaging materials, lubrication fluids, or instructions in the local language.
When changes are made in the engineering company, the products should be released to the operational companies.
Create an engineering change order
To create an engineering change order, whether it's from a request or you're creating a new one, follow these steps:
Go to Engineering change management > Common > Engineering change management > Engineer change orders.
Select New.
In the Title field, enter the text that briefly describes or identifies the changes in the request.
In the Priority field, select a value to indicate how high the priority of the change is.
In the Category field, select a value to describe the type of change that you are requesting.
In the Severity field, select a value to indicate the severity of the issue that should be fixed by implementing the request. You can have the severity be automatically calculated by selecting Calculate in the Severity group in the Action Pane.
The Process status section will be populated when the change is processed. For example, the change order is similar to a file, where the changes are being drafted or designed. When you select the Process toggle, those changes take place, so the product is then released or modified in the engineering company with the changes that are reflected in the change order.
In the Impacted Products FastTab, select New to add products to the change order.
Similar to the change request, you can search and add products in various ways, see the business impact, open transactions, and more, from the Impacted Products FastTab.
When the product owner selects Approve in the Change order Action Pane in the Change status section, the change is approved in the system.
