Planning and control of engineering changes in manufacturing systems

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Companies have to implement an increasing number of Engineering Changes (EC) in their manufacturing systems in order to continuously improve their productivity and to react on changing requirements. That is necessary to maintain their competitiveness and to be able to manufacture diversified products for different markets. The increasing product diversification, the adaptation due to changing market requirements and the aim to increase productivity are leading to an increasing number of necessary EC in manufacturing systems. The available time to plan and implement EC is decreasing due to their high number. Consequently, either less EC can be implemented or the quality of the planning and the implementation is insufficient. If fewer EC can be implemented the number of EC which have to be implemented will increase. Consequently, the needed productivity improvements and adaptions are not implemented. EC planned with insufficient quality are leading to the same effect. They have to be replanned and are ineffective. If the required adaptions and the increased productivity cannot be achieved, further EC will be needed and the problem increases. In order to solve this problem, the goal of the underlying work is to research a new approach to plan and control EC in manufacturing systems. This will be achieved through a three step approach. The first step is the prioritization of EC. After the prioritization, EC are planned in the second step. Thereby, it will be considered which resources are necessary and how EC have to be planned in order to reduce production shutdowns. The third step consists of a method to control EC in manufacturing systems. Rapid planning adaptations can be required due to influences such as the breakdown of maintenance resources or schedule delays. For a fast identification of required adaptations, the production, EC and production goals are surveyed continuously. The approach enables an efficient implementation of EC and assures that the needed adaptations and the increase of productivity will be achieved.