Change Authorization Documents

[CAD_Man]

Our current practice is to have the Drafter/Designer electronically add ALL signatures and dates (even for a new release) after the ECO is approved. There is nothing stopping them from making last minute edits (intentional or not). Then they create a PDF and publish the drawing.

My strong opinion is that an ECO only "Authorizes" the change to be made. The drawing still needs to be signed and dated, proving that someone verified that the approved changes where implemented correctly.

Can someone show me an ASME/ISO/AS Standard which states that if a drawing change is documented and approved on a "Change Authorization Document" (ECO, ECN, DCR, Etc.), than the drawing(s) does not have to be signed (physically or electronically)?

Thanks so much

 

[ctopher]

Companies should follow standard. If the document is approved by the ECN, then those are the changes made. If additional changes are made, they need to be amended on the ECN for tracking/history.
Unfortunately, I see too common people making changes whenever they like because they do not understand the concept of revision control, or configuration management. I rarely see two companies management document control the same.
This is not taught in school, so people make up new ways at the companies they start at.

Chris, CSWP
SolidWorks '16
ctophers home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[drawoh]

swertel,

I figure that with 3D parametric CAD, PDM is necessary because of all the linked files. If the CAD models are not under control, you do not know if they have been modified or not. Since they affect the drawing files and your PDFs, you have no way to contain document updates to within the instructions of the ECO. This is aside from the fact that PDM allows you to work on local hard drives and remotely on laptops.

You want the 3D CAD in PDM.

--
JHG

 

[KENAT]

drawoh, there are ways to have the CAD files controlled without using PLM software - but it's not necessarily efficient or fool proof.

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[drawoh]

KENAT,

There is up to a point. A long time ago when I administered a UNIX CAD network, I wrote a set of document management scripts. I had check-in, check-out, I implemented change requests, I locked down finalized files, and I logged everything. The files were mostly AutoCAD, PCAD and PordWerfect, and there was no file linking.

Any document management system for 3D parametric CAD like SolidWorks, must be intelligent enough to follow file links, and to recognize any features in a file that are driven by the contents of another file. File ABC.sldasm cannot be locked down until all its sub-assemblies and parts are locked down. If you do small assemblies, your document management person may be able to do this manually. Right now, I have an assembly with 3172 parts attached to it. I would not want to manage this manually.

--
JHG

 

[KENAT]

We have bigger files that get managed semi manually - basically once ECO is approved files get moved to a write protected area on our network. Our CAD has a reasonable file management utility that makes this just about workable but is still fairly labor intensive.

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[CAD_Man]

@swertel,

You would be a lifesaver if you could PROVE that the Drawing and ECO are two separate documents requiring their own sign off?

This is what I am trying to prove. I've searched ASME, SAE, ISO, Etc.

The fact that you are a CMII-P certified practitioner, and have the same opinion as I do, gives me hope that there is something out there to fill this gap.

Without a standard to point to it is just another opinion, or "Best Practice" at best.

Chris Wilson
Engineering Services Manager

Certified SolidWorks Professional
Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator

 

[JNieman]

Even if you point to some standard that someone wrote, somewhere, you'll have a heck of a time getting someone to care about it if the company doesn't profess or require adherence to said standard.

The mere existence of rules does not necessitate conformance.

 

[CAD_Man]

@JNieman,

At our company:
We state on our drawings that we are compliant to ASME Y14.100.
We state as a company that we are compliant to ISO 9001 an SAE-AS9100.

My JOB is to ensure that our Change Control process is in compliance with all those standards.


Chris Wilson
Engineering Services Manager

Certified SolidWorks Professional
Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator

 

[JNieman]

I understand, but the ideas are important to address before you are faced with the resistance, if you choose to implement changes or new rules.

Conforming to ISO 9001 is... well... cake. It's pretty broad and nonrestrictive, leaving companies to formulate their own solutions as they see fit.
AS9100, depending on your particular scope, can be relatively painless though there are still generic requirements. Some may be worse than others - my experience is only in the areas we include in our scope.


But if you're going to start pulling "shall statements" from ISO 10007, EIA-649, and GEIA-HB-649, I just think you should know whether or not ISO9001, AS9100, or ASME Y14.100 actually point to them at all. If they do not, you might be met with a lot of resistance to the idea of conforming to their rules. Unless they fix a glaring gap or lack of fulfillment of ISO9001, AS9100, or ASME Y14.100 requirements.

If you see some of the content of ISO 10007, EIA-649, or GEIA-HB-649 being beneficial to your department or company, you might have to actually go upstream a bit to get it adopted before going downstream to lord it over your peers.

 

[3DDave]

The company I worked the longest with assumed the change documents were the controlling documents and did not require a full suite of signatures on the incorporation. This for the obvious reason that the changes are part of the documentation and would be sent along with the base document to suppliers. They did have an intense check group that worked to insure the changes were incorporated as best as possible to the released changes. This for foreign and domestic military projects.

It is reasonable to proceed on that basis - one should not be able to retroactively tell a vendor that the drawing incorporation invalidates the changes they were previously sent. Errors in incorporation were dealt with by an immediate creation and release of a new change.

The problem is as always - one needs to have some document that condenses the exact change so that those working with complex documents don't need to spend a significant time to find the applicable changes that would be required if only fully incorporated drawing were released. That change document should also explain -why- the change is being made to ensure everyone can see that the change meets the goal. Because there are two documents, there is a chance they will not be identical.

This means that the best scheme is that the change and the incorporation are done and signed off simultaneously which eliminates as much risk as it is possible to eliminate. The signers of the change affirm they understand why the change is made, the particulars of the change, and that the drawing reflects their understanding of the effect the change should have on the drawing.

Unfortunately a system like that is unstable, because people are lazy and will tend not do all the work.

 

[swertel]

Chris (@CAD_MAN),

Do your drawings have their own document (ID) number?
Do your ECOs have their own document (ID) number?

I'm going to go on a limb and say you probably do identify each of these documents with their own unique ID numbers. It's probably a non-significant sequential number other than a possible prefix to identify one of them as "ECO." Therefore, they are their own independant documents and therefore do require their own approval. How they each get approved within your workflow for streamlined efficiency is another matter.

The only proof I can provide via industry standards is to look at the actual change process. The ECO is the order for a change. Before a change takes place, in our conversation a drawing is revised, the change must first be approved. That means that the ECO goes through the entire approval cycle 1st, then the change is implemented (the drawing is actually revised). Once a document is changed, it needs to be reviewed and approved. This is the verification step in the change process.

These are fundamental steps in any change process. Implementation of these steps varies with every organization. But, with each step, there needs to be a set of approvals to know that the change is ready for the next step.

--Scott
www.wertel.pro

 

[CAD_Man]

Scott (@swertel),

Yes, Drawings and ECO's have separate unique ID's. For example, Drawing Number 256-928734 will state "RLSD IAW ECO OPB-1615" in the Revision Block.

In our process (see attached) we make changes to the drawing based on the approved ECR. The Engineer will review the Drawings prior to submitting the ECO for further approval. Once the ECO is released, the drafter adds the names/dates to the Drawings.

Thoughts?

Chris Wilson
Engineering Services Manager

Certified SolidWorks Professional
Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator

 

[swertel]

Your change process is exactly like ours. At one point in history (when drawings were still done by hand), the ECO would be created and routed before any drawing changes were made. As technology progressed, and as we kept having to revise the ECO because Drafting would find unexpected interferences after the change, requiring additional changes, the ECO became less of an "order" and more of a "record" documenting the WAS/IS or FROM/TO of the change. In order to capture all the changes and avoid multiple re-routes through the approval cycle, the ECO and Drawing get routed at the same time. Therefore, when the reviewers are approving the change, they are actually approving BOTH the ECO and the Drawing. Essentially one electronic signature approves two documents.

While the flow seems very efficient on paper, as any LEAN practitioner would attest, it is actually really bad. We're moving away from it.

I've attached the full CMII Closed-Loop Change Process diagram as well as the simplified rendition that shows the flow-via-forms. Each form is independently reviewed and approved before the next step in the process can be started. When looking at the full closed-loop process, notice that the documents don't actually get modified until the last step, in the upper right corner of the diagram -- the "document upgrade" is the change with the "user validation" as the sign-off steps.

--Scott
www.wertel.pro

 

[drawoh]

CAD_Man,

Again here, I am not looking at compliance. I am trying to see what you are accomplishing.

Is your ECR generated exclusively by the engineer? What if a saleperson or somebody on your production line has a problem? How do they report it?

What does the ECR contain? If it were my system, the ECR would be required to describe the problem. It would be permissible to suggest a solution. In your system, it appears the ECR provides a detailed instruction on how the drawing is to be changed. The drawings appear to be approved for release from the ECR.

What does the ECO accomplish, that filling in the revision block would not? I would not care about your ECO. I would want your drawing to be correct.

In the handy, dandy Drawoh system, ECR entry would be accessible to everyone, engineers, production, sales, management, and even the cleaning staff.

[ol]
[li]The originator fills in the ECR, describing the problem, and how serious it is. There would be a section on the ECR where they could suggest a solution[/li]
[li]Engineering reviews the ECR. They decide whether or not to fix problem and how to fix the problem. There would be a paper trail of markups, sketches and meeting minutes.[/li]
[li]If the ECR is rejected, it is archived. The cleaning lady's ass is covered.[/li]
[li]When the change is worked out, drawings must be released for correction. This can be done from the ECR. We can have a separate ECO[ ]system for this. The ECO would list the document changes. It would not list the reasons for the change.[/li]
[li]The drawings are released from the PDM[ ]vault to be changed.[/li]
[li]The drafter changes the drawings as per the ECO.[/li]
[li]The drawings are checked in and then reviewed for compliance to the ECO.[/li]
[li]The drawings are finalized then issued.[/li]
[li]With the issue of the updated drawings, the ECO is closed and archived.[/li]
[li]When the original problem is solved, the ECR is closed and archived.[/li]
[/ol]

The ECR is a problem reporting system. The open ECRs are a To-Do list of problems to be solved (or ignored). In many cases, ECRs are sufficient to release drawings and track revisions. This is a KISS[ ]option. An ECO system allows you to mix and match ECRs, and conveniently build work orders. If there are IP or legal issues with the information on the ECR, this can be kept off the ECO.

Managing PDFs and leaving 3D[ ]CAD files uncontrolled, is incomprehensible to me.

--
JHG

 

[CAD_Man]

Scott (@swertel),

If I wanted to PM you (or any other participant) to create a more direct dialog, how could that be done? I don't see an option for that on this forum, without requesting their email, which then goes public.

I appreciate everything you provided and will look into taking a CM training class. For now I have ordered the book suggested by @cowski (Engineering Documentation Control Handbook).

I really was hoping to find a "Smoking gun" as to WHY the drawing and ECO have to be signed separately if not attached on an electronic workflow.

The closest I have is the fact that ASME Y14.100 states that the drawings need to be signed, and there is no standard stating that approval of an ECO listing that drawing counts as approval of the changes made to the drawing.

Thanks again

Chris Wilson
Engineering Services Manager

Certified SolidWorks Professional
Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator

 

[KENAT]

CAD Man there is not private PM on this site, for the most part the reason is to keep the discussion in public domain where all can benefit in perpetuity from the pearls of wisdom thrown out.

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[swertel]

If you do end up taking the training, please use me as a reference.

If you want to get in touch with me, you should be able to find my contact info on my website, linked in my signature.

--Scott
www.wertel.pro