How to process Customer ECO's (Engineering Change Orders)

[dillydally]

Hello! I am new to the ISO process and have been tasked with getting the procedures and work instructions written.
Some background......the company is a "service" company that supplies repair/rework for legacy product to 1 customer (at the moment). The legacy product is 20+ years old and sometimes the customer sends ECO's replacing components.
My question is two fold......1. What kind of doc control do I need to set up for this? Can I just use the customer's ECO and control it or do I have to make up the company's own ECO form and control it?
ANY comments would help!

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: Customer ECO's

Welcome to the Cove.

There are a couple of things that should be happening. You should be getting a change notice (obviously), and you should invoke control over what happens after an ECO arrives. You don't necessarily need a form of your own; the customer's ECO is a document of external origin and should be controlled accordingly. If you think having your own form might help, that's fine but it isn't necessary.

As far as control of the process is concerned, you might need to think about:

• When the transition to the new version is to take place;
• Whether or not the components you need are or will be available;
• Possible upcharges if the new component costs more than the old one, or involves more work.
• Having a purchase order in hand that specifies the new revision;
• Disposition of existing inventory of components or finished assemblies.

You get the idea. There might be some of those things that don't apply, and others that I missed, either because I'm not very bright or because you know your business better than I do. Create a working process and then document it.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Jim is on track. This is the second thread today on Engineering Change Orders. I'm adding this following excerpt from an older post of mine on the process to EACH of these threads as pertinent to the topic.

May I suggest you add the following to the cover sheet which accompanies any changed document as it makes the rounds for approval before becoming the most recent version?
Quote:
_Change Classification
_Class I - Form, Fit, Function
_Class II - Clarification, Correction
_Class III - Long Lead Release Only

ChangePriority
_Low
_High
_Medium

Engineering Change Notification
     
Reason
_New Release
_Revision to Existing
_Design Change
_Product Improvement
_Post-Production Modification
_Customer Request
_Supplier Request
_Other (explain below)

Stock
_Stock is not Affected
_Utilize Remaining Stock
_Purge Stock and Rework
_Purge Stock and Scrap
_Other (Explain)

Impact
_Incorporate on Next Order
_Incorporate on Next Installation
_Affects Current Production Units
_Affects Fielded Units
_Not Affected (New Release)

Cost & Schedule
_No Cost Change
_Cost Increase
_Cost Decrease
_No Schedule Change
_Schedule Delay
_Schedule Improvement

 

[dillydally]

Thanks to you and Jim for your inputs. I will proceed and if I need any other advise (which I'm sure I will), I will send another post.

 

[ssz102]

first, you can work out a change control for customer's documents, and included for this documents as below:
1. responsiblities assigned of each dept such as PM, QA, Production and ME etc;
2.review effectiveness for these ECOs and considered if it is need to re-quote
3.how conduct these parts befor changed and when carry out new ECOs?
4.whether need provide new first article to approvaled by customer?

 

[dillydally]

Thanks for your input SSZ102, but this company is very small and operates with very few full time people and has no PM or ME. There is no full blown Quality Department, just people making sure the product delivered back to the customer is compliant with their needs.
We do review each customer ECO to see if there will be increased cost to us and advise the customer accordingly.
All ECO's received from the customer MUST be implemented ASAP as the product is in the "legacy" stage and needs to be returned within 2 days to the customer so there is little down time.
I do appreciate your input though and when we get to be a larger company we will most definately implement these processes.