Engineering Change Management and Production Version Approval

Use

In the process industries, requirements for the documentation and checking of production processes vary widely depending on the branch of industry and the product. For this reason, you can use a change rule to restrict the editing of the production-related master data of production version, master recipe, and bill of material (BOM) in the master recipe (see Engineering Change Management and Recipe Approval).

  • With a change master record, that is, with detailed planning and documentation

  • With an engineering change order, this means with an approval procedure as is laid down, for example, in the GMP guidelines for the pharmaceutical industry

You can define your own change types to set up a recipe-specific approval procedure.

By defining this change rule, you determine the requirements for creating and releasing process orders requiring approval when you define you master data (see Creating Process Orders Requiring Approval).

The change procedure you use must be just as rigid as the change rule.

Integration

To use engineering change management and change procedures, you must install application component Engineering Change Management (LO-ECH).

Depending on the change rule or the change procedure you want to use, you must create the following data there:

  • A change master record for the object types Task list/master recipe and Bill of material

  • An engineering change request with object management records for the task lists or master recipes and the BOM of the production version

The change type assigned to the object management records must be identical to that assigned to the change rule in the master recipe.

If you use engineering change orders, you also carry out the approval procedure based on the status management of engineering change management. For you to be able to use an engineering change order to edit a production version, the engineering change order must have status To be edited. For the system to be able to approve the production version, it must then be assigned status Released.

  • Change numbers are used to identify both change master records and engineering change orders in the system.

  • Production versions do not support change master records or engineering change orders with parameter effectivity.

Key Features

You must comply with the change rule of a master recipe when editing a production version in the following cases:

  • When you assign the master recipe to the production version

  • When you want to change a production version to which you have already assigned the recipe

Unlike recipe editing with a change master record or engineering change order, you do not create a new change status for the production version. You only assign the change number to it. This change number is used to document or approve changes. If required, you must adjust the validity period of the production version manually.

A production version is considered approved when the following requirements are met:

  • The master recipe assigned to the production version has a change rule that requires an engineering change order with or without a change type.

  • The production version has been assigned a change number that complies with this change rule.

  • The relevant engineering change order has been released, this means, you can no longer use it for changes.

If you want to change the production version again or withdraw the approval, you must assign a new, unreleased engineering change order to it.

Activities

You assign a change number to the production version as follows:

In the material master record, you cannot use change numbers to edit production versions. In the standard system, you can therefore not edit production versions whose change rule requires an engineering change order in the material master record.