Feasability and Performance Analysis of Automating Engineering Change Requests

Published

August 18, 2021

Author(s)

Michael Sharp, Thomas D. Hedberg Jr., William Z. Bernstein, Soonjo Kwon

Abstract

Engineering change is a non-value-added activity that happens as a product progresses through its lifecycle. Engineering change is a significant cost sink in many projects. While avoiding and mitigating the risk of change is the ideal approach, mistakes and improvements are recognized inevitably as more is learned over time about the quality of the decisions made in a product's design. This paper presents a feasibility and performance analysis of automating engineering change requests to demonstrate the promise for increasing speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of product-lifecycle wide engineering-change-request processes. In doing so, we construct a genetic algorithm and search model to discover and compare design alternatives. Finally, we demonstrate the proposed methodology by overcoming inspection issues related to the combinatorial effects of design features through a case study. Reducing the human capital involved in the engineering-change process would provide significant opportunities for saving industry both time and money in the execution of its projects.

Citation

International Journal of Production Research

Volume

59

Issue

16

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

Engineering Change Request, Inspectability, Manufacturing Standards, Design-for-Inspection, Design Automation

Citation

Sharp, M. , Hedberg Jr., T. , Bernstein, W. and Kwon, S. (2021), Feasability and Performance Analysis of Automating Engineering Change Requests, International Journal of Production Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2021.1893900 (Accessed October 3, 2024)