Federated Change Management across enterprise ERP, PLM, MES, CRM, CAD, MRP

Federated Change Management Module

Recognize your Impact of Change

Streamline your processes for better outcomes

Product changes need to be managed end-to-end after becoming aware of the impact of change. Most PLM platforms provides visibility to resources and schedules so you can see the overall impact on projects and products during the planning process. End-to-end closed-loop product change management must be integrated with the enterprise backbone, otherwise changes can cause redundant rework and negative consequences.

Management of Change across Life Cycle of Manufacturing Plant and the Products they manufacture

A product starts with a Conceptual Design. In this view many iterative changes are made to finalize the actual functionality, usage, materials, form, fit, and most importantly its application. In the process industry for instance, a Process Flow Diagram (PFD) represents the Conceptual View of the Plant or Refinery. The PFD provides the overall source network of material feed, the desired production output, types of products to be manufactured, and the supply chain management flow of distribution of product and its distribution network. The demand Analysis, Business Case, and multiple scenarios are considered. Once PFD reaches a desired level of maturity, a Process and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) is developed in 3D CAD to represent more granular details of the Plant or Refinery. This rendition of the Plant lists out the Form Fit and Function of each of the critical elements demonstrating various pipelines, valves, pumps, vessels, and instrumentation that would be required to make the plant run optimally. The P&ID goes through several iterations as well and may have several renditions corresponding to each of the scenarios of PFDs. The P&ID then progress further into a more detailed Front End and Engineering Design (FEED). The FEED is then transformed into an EPC Bid. The EPC contractors are evaluated and selected. The selected EPC contractor then starts the engineering, procurement, and construction of the plant with its sub-contractors chain. Once the Plant is built and commissioned, the owner operator takes the ownership of the plant and starts its operations. In this above example we will use BOM to represent - Design, Specifications, Parts, Material, and Services, which means that the BOM should have all of these extensions embodied into it.:

The Conceptual Design has various elements defined in the form of parts and products, that makes up the Conceptual BOM.
The P&ID represents a CAD BOM
The FEED represents the (Detailed) Design BOM
The EPC contractors are provided an RFP which includes the RFP BOM listing out the critical elements of the Plant
The EPC contractors propose their own As-Proposed BOM
Once an agreement is reached between the Owner Operator and the EPC, resulting in a As-Sold BOM
During the EPC phase, the selected contractor produces series of Engineering BOMs (EBOMs) that are reviewed and approved by the Owner Operator and regulatory agencies.
Later As-Built BOMs are received and accepted by the Owner Operator. These will transform to as-Commissioned BOM.
Finally as the Owner Operator assumes ownership of the plant and starts to main sustainment changes, those are called As-Maintained BOM

In the above example, many BOMs are copied over, renamed, and matured further as new objects, sometimes leaving behind critical knowledge, wisdom, and lessons learned.

In the Federated Change Management, the BOM object remains the same. It is one single object, however as it matures, additional details are added to meet the needs of each of the BOM Views. Its easier said then done because the data is flowing across multiple phases, organizations, systems, and processes. The change has to be managed in many dimensions - The process can be changing itself, the process actors can be changing and have different duties, the data model of objects participating in the process may have attribute driven sub-processes, and lastly, the process integration across platforms may have technology or alignment constraints. The Federated Change Management Module deals with all these challenges seamlessly.