Joe, I feel for you. The global company makes a compliance engineer's job more difficult than ever. I get uneasy when the design and or production control gets out of eyesight.
However, we have managed to put a small dent in the "Global ECO" process. We have recently made a rule that dictates that all ECO changes be done in a "From - To" format on 8-1/2" x 11" paper. This means that we have an 8-1/2" X 11" form for bills of material changes that records all items that are deleted, added, or quantity changed on a bill of material. For drawings, we either use a copier or CAD program to zoom in on sections of large drawings and print or copy them onto the top half of an 8-1/2" X 11" sheets. This becomes the "from" part of the drawing markup. We then reproduce that section of the drawing on the bottom half of the 8-1/2" x 11" sheet with changes drawn in dark ink (no color coding). This becomes the "to" section of the markup. At the top of the sheet, we put a header stating something like: Drawing # 33304, From Rev A, To Rev B. We then write the zone location of the change if the original drawing was large. All of these changes are put in a package with an ECO cover sheet which lists all of the drawing, BOM and document numbers being changed. There are more details to the process which I can share directly with you (without tying up the forum) if you are interested. My boss, who implemented this process had a goal of engineering change orders being "faxable" and/or "scanable". This way, we can fax the change orders to outside contract manufacturers and/or our other engineering groups worldwide. That is why we went through great pains to copy reduce or zoom in on large drawings to fit the changed sections on 8-1/2" X 11" sheets. That's also why we eliminated the old color coded markup. It's not perfect. Most of our drawings are done in AUTOCAD. I would love to see a process where we can use the cheaper version of "AUTOVIEW" to electronically markup drawings. We could then share them electronically. It would save my sinuses a great deal of wear and tear by not having to smell toner at the copier or printer for hours on end. However, then there is the software compatibility issue to consider. Is it worth buying a license for AUTOCAD and/or AUTOVIEW for all of our contract manufacturers and/or engineering groups? That's a question that each company must answer for itself. We have run into another problem that we haven't been able to solve completely. Now that we are a "global" company; our product managers, production managers, marketing people ... are in the office about 50% of the time. They're travelling the rest of the time. Many ECO's require eight signatures. Getting all eight of the required people to physically sign the document is a pain in the *&%$%. Engineering has been pushing for these people to designate proxies to sign in their absence, but it hasn't happened yet. I hope I have helped with at least part of your question. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend. Chris Maxwell, Design Engineer GN Nettest Optical Division 6 Rhoads Drive, Building 4 Utica, NY 13502 PH: 315-797-4449 FAX: 315-797-8024 EMAIL: [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [SMTP:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 12:34 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Global Engineering Change Process > > > > > Associates, > > The following subject is not related to our normal subject matter, > however, I am > hoping that some of you can provide me with some useful information for > establishing a global engineering change order process. > > Several years ago, we were a small company with all business activities > located > on one campus. The Engineering Change Order process was a simple one. > > Now, we have manufacturing facilities all over the world that are > supported by > engineering services in different locations. We have many joint ventures > and > collaborations with other companies where they build a product, yet we > provide > engineering support. > > I am sure that many of you belong to companies that are in this same > situation. > How do your companies deal with the Engineering Change process? > > All responses are appreciated. > > Regards > > Joe Martin > EMC/Product Safety Engineer > P.E. Biosystems > > > > > ------------------------------------------- > This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety > Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. > > To cancel your subscription, send mail to: > [email protected] > with the single line: > unsubscribe emc-pstc > > For help, send mail to the list administrators: > Jim Bacher: [email protected] > Michael Garretson: [email protected] > > For policy questions, send mail to: > Richard Nute: [email protected] > ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Jim Bacher: [email protected] Michael Garretson: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected]
