Solumina's integrated engineering change management (ECM) minimizes downtime, accelerates throughput, and reduces rework. In complex discrete manufacturing, frequent engineering change orders (ECOs) are a fact of life and can result in significant downtime and high costs. With the Solumina platform, you can implement engineering changes in real-time during a production run while keeping operations moving, avoiding delays and maintaining visibility and traceability. At its most basic, engineering change management is a closed-loop process used to implement changes to components, products, or processes. It involves requesting, evaluating, planning, implementing, and tracing an engineering change to completion. The Solumina platform streamlines and expedites all aspects of this process, capturing change information manually or pulling it in automatically from external systems like a PLM. It connects affected objects with resulting objects, enabling mass updates and streamlining subsequent stages of the change management process. Action plans provide detailed instructions, and Solumina requires technicians to acknowledge updated work instructions. Once all actions are complete, Solumina updates the state of the change, providing closed-loop communication.

Features:

• Manage External and Internal Changes: Solumina can capture change information entered manually or pull it in automatically from an external system like a PLM. Internal changes typically involve process planning and execution, while external changes are typically used to manage product design. Solumina captures these change orders on the fly along with critical details that will be leveraged throughout the change management process.
• Connect Affected and Resulting Objects: Use Solumina to identify the affected objects that are the subject of the change (parts, tools, process plans, etc.) and digitally link them with resulting objects that will be triggered by the change (replacement parts, replacement tools, etc.). Creating this connection in Solumina enables mass updates and streamlines subsequent stages of the change management process.
• Impact Analysis: Leverage Solumina to automatically generate a list of all the impacted objects that will require an update, and then plan and review the next steps for that order.
• Action Planning: With Solumina, you can create an organized, comprehensive summary list of planned actions that provide in-depth instructions, priority, start and end date, and assignees.
• Execution: Release the actions on your plan, prompting tagged employees to take action on them with home screen updates and alerts. Solumina requires technicians to acknowledge new or updated work instructions to ensure they are working on the most recent documentation. Maintain visibility on progress and track your plan to completion.
• Close the Loop: Once all actions are complete, Solumina updates the state of the change, providing closed-loop communication back to the requestor of the change.