Part Change Management: A Case Study on Automotive Engineering and Production; Domestic and International Perspectives

Due to interest in aspects such as process, strategies, and tools of engineering changes expressed in a literature review, a case study was done on a major automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to assess the perceived quality of its part engineering change management process and supporting system through its employees’ eyes. A combination of 12 interviews lasting 12 h and 46 written surveys was used to capture the views of participants from all major functions found at the research and development (R&D) headquarters of the OEM: Purchasing, Production, Development, and one group consisting of all other functions (“Other”). Statistical analysis was performed to identify statistically significant differences between employee perceptions of an engineering change management system among different departments, amount of use, and years of use. It was found that statistically significant differences exist in terms of understanding the usability of the system between different departments and also between different years of experience.