ECR Lifecycle

Anyone assigned to any of the following roles can create an ECR to request a change to a part or specification: Design Engineer, Senior Design Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Senior Manufacturing Engineer, ECR Chairman, ECR Coordinator, ECR Evaluator, Part Family Coordinator or Product Obsolescence Manager.

The ECR lifecycle is a route-based process that provides dynamic route-based reviews. To accomplish this, change responsibility is assigned to a specific organization when the ECR is created. This change organization manages all predefined information and determines the ECR Coordinator and ECR Chairman for the ECR. Within the organization, there are members with these roles, as well as one "lead" person assigned to these roles. There are also route templates to manage tasks, a distribution list to manage notifications, and reviewer lists (the list of people that must sign or approve the ECR before it is promoted to a specified state).

The ECR is processed by moving it through the states in its lifecycle. For example, in the first state, a new ECR is created and an organization is assigned change responsibility to manage all predefined information. The owner connects supporting documents and then promotes the ECR to the Submit state, where the ECR Coordinator assigns a Responsible Design Engineer and promotes the ECR to the Evaluate state, and so on. Only the owner of a ECR can change its state.

Each time the ECR is promoted or demoted, a PDF report is generated and checked in to the ECR. In any state before Plan ECO, the owner has the option to cancel the ECR.

Information on the deprecated ECR (Standard) policy is no longer included in this documentation. For details on the ECR (Standard) policy, consult the AEF documentation for version V6R2009x or earlier.

The ECR lifecycle includes these states:

Create

An ECR's name is automatically generated. The ECR creator selects an organization to be assigned change responsibility to manage all predefined information.

The ECR originator has the option to attach parts and specifications that will be affected by this change. Once the originator has completed building the ECR, s/he promotes it to the Submit state. A trigger checks to ensure that the change responsibility has been defined and that there is an ECR Coordinator defined within that organization.

Submit

As the ECR enters the Submit state, the owner is automatically changed and the ECR is routed to the correct ECR Coordinator based on which person in the responsible change organization is defined in the lead role (if there is more than one) for ECR Coordinator. The ECR type must be classified as either an ECR or a Deviation Change Request (DCR). The ECR Coordinator can determine the classification by selecting TRUE or FALSE from the Deviation Process drop-down list on the Editing ECR Details page. If TRUE is selected, when the ECR is promoted to the Evaluate state, a trigger will change the ECR type from ECR to DCR and the ECR policy from ECR to DCR.

In the Submit state, the ECR Coordinator decides if the change is necessary and if it is explained in sufficient detail. If clarification is needed, the ECR Coordinator demotes the ECR to the Create state and it is reassigned to the originator to make necessary changes.

If the ECR is acceptable, the ECR Coordinator assigns a Responsible Design Engineer and one or more additional assignees who have the same access as the owner of the ECR. The Responsible Design Engineer is the lead engineer for evaluating the change and can reassign assignee resources as required. The Responsible Design Engineer can be any user with the Design Engineer or Manufacturing Engineer role who is a member of the organization that is assigned change responsibility or design responsibility.

The ECR Coordinator, the ECR Evaluator and any assignees can add affected items and hence become assigned to the affected item. Their names will appear on the ECR Assignees page.

The ECR Coordinator chooses a reviewer list route template that will be used to create the standard route for the ECR.

The ECR Coordinator promotes the ECR to the Evaluate state. All assignees and the Responsible Engineer receive notifications.

Evaluate

As the ECR enters the Evaluate state, the owner is automatically changed to the specified ECR Evaluator / Responsible Design Engineer, who is the assignee of all affected items added by the ECR Coordinator and the Responsible Design Engineer. The ECR is routed to that person and to all assignees for other affected items.

In the Evaluate state, the Responsible Design Engineer and assignees review the change description, any supporting documentation, and the parts and specifications attached, and check that all part dispositions are set correctly. The Responsible Design Engineer can also attach additional parts and drawings or even change some of the existing connections based on specific knowledge of how the change is actually likely to be done. The Responsible Design Engineer also assigns users to the reviewer list for use in the Review state.

If clarification is needed, the Responsible Design Engineer demotes the ECR back to the Submit state and it is automatically reassigned back to the ECR Coordinator.

When the Responsible Design Engineer or an assignee adds affected items to the ECR, that person becomes the assignee of that affected item. Also, if they create a markup (BOM or Item) for an affected item, the affected item assignee becomes the owner of the markup and has the authority to approve it for implementation or reject it. Before the ECR can be promoted, all attached markups (BOM or Item) must be approved or rejected by the owning assignee.

If the ECR is acceptable, the Responsible Design Engineer promotes it to the Review state. Triggers check to ensure that the change responsibility has been defined, that there is an ECR Chairman defined within that organization, and a reviewer list has been assigned.

On promotion to the Review state, a route is created and started using the template from the reviewer list with a Route Base Purpose set to "Standard" and a Route Completion Action set to "Promote Connected Objects." All tasks must be completed before the ECR can be promoted from Review to Plan ECO. The owner of the route is the current ECR owner, usually the Responsible Design Engineer. When all tasks are complete, the route owner is notified and can then promote the ECR. If a route already exists, which may happen on demote and subsequent promote, then a new route is not created but a message is sent to the route owner (Responsible Design Engineer) to restart the route.

Review

As the ECR enters the Review state, the owner is automatically changed to the ECR Chairman and the ECR is routed to that person.

In this state, the ECR Chairman and the people assigned to the reviewer list review the ECR, all supporting documentation, and the BOM and Item Markups. They either approve or reject the ECR by approving or rejecting their assigned route tasks.

If one or more route tasks are rejected, the ECR cannot be promoted. In this case, the ECR Chairman needs to evaluate the rejected comments. If the ECR Chairman feels the ECR needs more work, then he rejects his task and demotes the ECR back to the Evaluate state where the ECR approvers and assignees are able to add the affected items that need additional work. The Responsible Design Engineer must then promote the ECR again when it is ready for review.

The ECR Chairman can also cancel the ECR, as long as there are no applied markups attached to the ECR.

When the last signature (the ECR Chairman) is approved, the ECR auto-promotes to the Plan ECO state.

Plan ECO

As the ECR enters the Plan ECO state, the owner is automatically changed to the Responsible Design Engineer and the ECR is routed to that person.

The Responsible Design Engineer assigns the affected items to a new or existing ECO for implementation. This is done through the Assign to ECO menu command on the ECR Affected Items page. This menu is active only when the ECR is in the Plan ECO state. The engineer selects one or more items to add to the ECO.

Complete

As the ECR enters the Complete state, the owner is automatically changed to a special user in the system named "Corporate." This has the effect of locking down the ECR so no additional changes can be made and it removes the ECR from the engineer's desk.

The ECR can be promoted to this state manually from Plan ECO or when any ECO attached to this ECR reaches the Released state.

Cancelled

In any state prior to Plan ECO, the ECR can be cancelled by the ECR owner or any ECR Chairman in the organization that has change responsibility for the ECR. This halts the ECR's lifecycle and ends the change management process for its affected items.

When an ECR is cancelled, the following actions are performed:


  • All affected items connected to the ECR are disconnected.
  • All routes connected to the ECR are disconnected. The route owner receives notification that the route has been cancelled. If the ECR is the only content of the route, the route is stopped.
  • Route templates connected to ECR are disconnected.
  • All assignees, distribution list and reviewer list members, as well as the ECR originator are notified that the ECR has been cancelled.
  • The ECR is promoted to the Cancelled state.