Causes of Engineering Change Propagation: An Analysis During Product Lifecycle

摘要

This article identifies the causes of engineering change propagation during the development and production phases of the product lifecycle using a statistical method applied to a large engineering change data set from the locomotive industry. This research identified three key influencing variables that were found to be related to engineering change propagation, namely: the engineering subsystem issuing the change, the subsystem interface complexity, and the designer experience. Predicting key influencing variables can reduce change propagation and provides important insights to practicing engineering managers. In particular, the results of this study can be used to improve engineering change decision-making processes and the utilization of resources. Similar complex systems composed of multiple subsystems can also benefit from the findings of this research.