Software tool for planning and analyzing engineering changes in manufacturing systems

Companies are facing an increasing number of engineering changes (ECs) in manufacturing systems (MS). The planning of ECs becomes a continuous task. It has to be proceeded properly in order to identify the efforts of the implementation and to reduce the risk of production shutdowns. Tools of the digital factory are able to support the planning and analyzing procedure. In order to improve the handling of ECs, an approach for planning and analyzing is presented. It starts with a systematic description of ECs. This systematic description initiates modules to analyze the impacts on MS and to automatically generate plans for the implementation. The planning and analyzing procedure is implemented in a software demonstrator which enables an intuitive navigation for the planning engineer. This software demonstrator provides direct feedback based on planned ECs. Its functionality is demonstrated and validated by a use case. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.