Change Management 
Use
Requirements for the documentation and checking of routings vary widely depending on the branch of industry and the product. They range from a fairly unrestricted maintenance of routing to detailed planning, documentation, and even strict approval procedures. To meet these requirements, the SAP system offers various types of routing maintenance described below .
Integration
Change master records and engineering change hierarchies are part of Engineering Change Management , which is a function in the component of the same name.
Prerequisites
If you maintain a routing using history, you always refer to a change master record. You can include change master records in a engineering change hierarchy.
Before you can work with history, you must have created change master records and if necessary engineering change hierarchies.
See also:
For more information, see the SAP Library LO - Engineering Change Management .
Features
Change Documents
Changes that you make to particular fields can be recorded in change documents .
Evaluating Change Documents
A function is available for evaluation, with which you can find change documents for selected groups, routing objects and the person who made the change. You can choose between the following ways of presenting the results.
Overview of the change documents found in the evaluation period
The system displays the change documents in the order they were created. The administrative data are displayed for each change document (for example, changed by, change on date and validity).
You can also display the changes recorded in each change document. Information is displayed about the edited routing object, the activity carried out ( created, changed or deleted ) as well as the changed field contents.
Overview of the changed routing objects
The system displays all routing objects that have change documents within the evaluation period. Information is displayed about the object, the activity carried out ( created, changed or deleted ) as well as the changed field contents. The objects are sorted according to category, that means first all headers are displayed, then material assignments etc.
Working with History
If necessary you can maintain your routings with history. This is particularly useful, if you want to make very complex changes. If you
Never work with history
Every routing object (header, operation etc.) has one and the same change status throughout its whole validity period.
Changes that you make in one routing object are valid for its whole validity period
Work with history,
Maintain a routing with reference to a change master record. A change master record has a valid-from date and a change number, that identifies it.
The changes that make to a routing take affect from the valid-from date.
You can use the change master record for several materials and objects in the routing as well as the BOM, so that all the changes take affect on the valid-from date. (This is particularly useful for large changes in your production processes.)
You can include several change master records in an engineering change hierarchy. You can thus control the release process for related changes by using a release key.
You create another change status when you maintain a routing object with a particular change master record for the first time. Change statuses that you have already created remain untouched.
always work with history
Your changes are entirely documented. You can always verify, who changed which routing object on which date.
work with and without history.
You have several possibilities when maintaining routings.
Changes that you make without history are possibly documented incompletely.
Evaluating Change Statuses
You can compare the change statuses of selected routings or routings objects. You receive.
A list of the change statuses with the evaluation period with details about the validity, the date it was created and changed, by whom and the change number
A list of the differences in the field contents in the selected changes statuses.