Watts Configuration Management for Senior Managers

Essential Product Configuration and Lifecycle Management for Manufacturing
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-12-802601-4
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 180 Seiten

Configuration Management for Senior Managers is written to help managers in product manufacturing and engineering environments identify the ways in which they can streamline their products and processes through proactive documentation control and product lifecycle management. Experienced consultant Frank Watts gives a practitioner's view tailored to the needs of management, without the textbook theory that can be hard to translate into real-world change. Unlike competing books that focus on CM within software and IT environments, this engineering-focused resource is packed with examples and lessons learned from leading product development and manufacturing companies, making it easy to apply the approach to your business. - Developed to help you identify key policies and practices needing attention in your organization to establish and maintain consistency of processes and products, and to reduce operational costs - Focused on configuration management (CM) within manufacturing and engineering settings, with relevant examples from leading companies - Written by an experienced consultant and practitioner with the knowledge to provide real-world insights and solutions, not just textbook theory

Frank Watts has over forty-eight years of industrial and consultation experience as a design engineer, industrial engineer, manufacturing engineer, systems analyst, project manager, and in management. He founded his own specialist configuration management company to provide specific expertise in product release, change control, bills of material and other engineering documentation control issues.Formally a director of engineering services, a director of operations and a director of manufacturing engineering, Watts has worked for Caterpillar, Collins Radio, Control Data, Storage Technology, UFE and Archive. He has guided the development of engineering change control processes at numerous companies and made significant contributions towards improving new product release processes, installing MRP/ERP systems and new numbering systems, as well as helping companies attain a single BOM database and guided reengineering of CM processes. He is an NDIA Certified Configuration and Data Manager, author of several magazine articles and author of the Engineering Documentation Control Handbook and CM Metrics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Watts, Frank B.

Leseproben

Policies and Critical Practices
Policies
If best-in-class processes are to be attained, every company/division should have one executive committed to be the CM champion. 2 The product design must be documented and controlled effectively and efficiently for profitable, sustainable, production, service, and sale of our products. 5 CM must be chartered, manned, and expected to be both communicator and the conveyor of new design documents and changes to the right people at the right time. 7 One CM office shall serve all the projects in one logical business unit. 10 One CM “organization,” usually in Engineering, needs to be established—part of a person in a start-up, a person as you grow, and several people when successful. 11 When your operations are multiplant, a slim corporate function with each plant/division having a CM function is appropriate. 11 The CM organization should answer directly to the Chief Engineer or to the Director of Engineering Services—not any lower in the organizational chart. 12 ISO certification must be recognized as only the first step out of chaos. Standards implementing the best of the best practices should follow. 13 Satisfy good commercial CM practices seeking the best of the best processes, then look at modifications to satisfy unique Mil Spec requirements. 14 The first “best-in-class” general standard written should outline the responsibilities of the CM organization. 15 CM must have control of rev levels after release, or you do not have control. 18 Any process designed by man can be improved by man. 19 CM processes with current software shall be addressed first, measured, and brought to a reasonably fast, well understood, efficient, effective, minimally controlled state, and then automated for efficiency if necessary. 24 Put any proposals for purchase of new—or major changes to—ERP, CM, PDM, PLM software on hold until the CM processes all measure up to reasonable performance expectations. 25 What goes on inside software engineering is essentially R&D design phase business and need not be tracked by CM except for tracking Requests for change and customer submissions. 26 One subject, one standard, one approver, followed by adequate training. 29 Put very little significance into the part number with the exception of a tab/dash suffix (to be discussed shortly). 33 Always tabulate the part number. If you have an existing PN convention that does not include this feature, add it as soon as practical. 34 The first practical opportunity should be seized upon for conversion to a single numbering system that embeds the document number in the tabulated part number. 39 The part number/document number design is a critical foundation element in product manufacturing—conversion should be seriously considered by senior management. 40 At and after release to pilot production the revision level must only be assigned by the CM organization. 41 The CM manager should work with the chief engineer and others to develop a cognizant engineer list. 42 Only deviations will be allowed which are temporary and wherein the design will not change. 43 Do not allow use of the defective parts until the change order is approved and released. 43 Require that deviations be logged in the affected document revision block. Approved deviations should be sent to CM who would post them to the affected document using the deviation as the authority. 45 The cognizant design engineer and service engineer must agree on those items which will be offered for quick sale as spares. 45 The Service Department must order and stock a minimum quantity of service parts. 45 Approvals are much like “Ham and Eggs,” where the chicken is involved but the pig was committed. 49 Required signatures shall be on the document(s) to be released, not on the Release Form. The technical signatures required shall be on the change markups—not on the change form. 50 Limit signatures on documents to an absolute minimum, but at least one author and one acceptor should sign. 51 The CM processes should always contain a provision for anyone directly affected by a document, to stop the process by notifying the CM manager that something is amiss. 51 Technical approvers on drawings, specs, code for release, and redline changes should be obtained by the cognizant engineer. 52 There must be a complete separation of technical issues from administrative issues in the CM processes. 53 The first step in process improvement is to measure the quality, speed, and volume of the current processes—release, BOM, request, and change. 56 Short, frequent, well-chaired team meetings are mandatory for quick change action. 59 The design engineer should prompt team discussion on any design issue at the first team meeting after becoming aware of the problem or after the request has been approved. 59 The executive champion should assure that the company’s normal major phases are logical and specified in a CM standard and named according to general usage. 68 The “company” phases should be readily visible on both the documents and in the systems—and thus reflected in the parts lists and bills of material as well as on drawings and specs. 69 Operations (usually production control) must furnish lead time estimates to engineering for all new items in a new product development. Engineering must release those items to buy and build in lead time. 71 The production control manager must notify executive management of each item which has not been or will apparently not be released in lead time. 71 The release form itself doesn’t need to be signed by anyone except the cognizant engineer providing the proper signatures are on the documents to be released. 73 The executive champion should assure that CM adds to/tailors this policy chart as necessary and develops a standard with accompanying rules for your enterprise. 74 The executive champion and the senior management must insist that the product spec is released prior to authorizing the design and development phase. 76 The product specification must be released to the next phase ahead of all other documentation for that phase. 76 Only one engineering signature and the primary internal customer signature (ME or IE) on new design documents should be required for pilot release. 77 A pilot production phase will be utilized in order to minimize company risk. 77 It is company policy to assure that the design data portion of the bill of material is always 100% accurate. 87 The parts list/bill of material for a new or spin-off product should be released to CM for entry into the PLM/ERP systems in the development phase. 88 The product cost shall be maintained in only one system—and autoloaded to the other if absolutely required. 89 The CM organization shall be responsible for entering the design data in both ERP and PLM. 90 The personnel which have been entering the design data into the ERP system should be transferred to CM. 90 It shall be our goal to attain a “single BOM” by having entry of design data one time in one system for initial release and changes and allowing other systems to be downloaded automatically. 91 An “engineering-friendly” parts list shall be programmed so that every assembly list shows only design data (plus date-in/date-out) and is double-spaced for easy markup. 93 Any item that is part of the product when shipped as well as design documents defining those items or defining the product should be listed in the BOM. 93 All but the smallest of operations need a separate process to allow operations, service, and other folks to request changes to design documents and product design. 104 Requests for changes to save labor or reduce costs must be cost analyzed and must payback the one time costs involved within X months. 104 Executive management needs to make a conscious decision as to which products need to be improved and which ones don’t. 105 Product manufacturing is not a politically correct world—an effective method of screening requests needs to be put in place. 107 A director or VP from engineering, supply chain,...