Technical product change teams: an organizational concept for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of technical product changes during ramp-up phases

Abstract

Inefficient and ineffective management of technical product changes during ramp-up phases of new model ranges in series production endanger the defined time-to-market and, concurrently, a company's expected earnings. One of the research projects at the Bremen Institute of Industrial Technology and Applied Work Science at the University of Bremen deals with this topic, and, accompanied by industry, significant weaknesses with regard to the organizational aspects have been identified. Today's product change management processes are based on DIN 199/4, a German standard publicized by the German Institute for Standardization in 1981, which focuses on a documentation scheme for bills of materials as well as engineering drawings. Unfortunately, the management of a physical product change process is not described. The project, however, shows the organizational deficits in this area of research. This article points out the main weaknesses of today's product change management and proposes a new approach for a product change classification scheme as well as an approach for a new organization scheme for product change management teams in order to reduce product change implementation lead times.

Keywords:

• Product change management
• Product changes
• Product start-up
• Ramp-up
• Product change classification

Acknowledgements

The topics concerning the conception and development of an efficient product change management are part of the research project ‘Technical Product Change Management During the Ramp-up Phase’, which is funded by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Federal State of Bremen, Germany. The project is carried out in cooperation with the DaimlerChrysler Plant Bremen, Germany, of the DaimlerChrysler Corporation. Future work of this project will include a more precise classification of product clusters with regard to the implementation of technical product changes. Among other things, a questionnaire, addressing suppliers in the German automotive industry, will be developed in order to identify product cluster specific reference processes.