Engineering Documentation Control / Configuration Management Standards Manual

By Frank B. Watts

Get to know a key ingredient to world-class product manufacturing

With this manual, you have the best of the best management practices for the configuration management processes. It goes a long way toward satisfying Total Quality Management, FDA, GMP, Lean CM and ISO/QS/AS 9XXX process documentation requirements. The one requirement common to all those standards is to document the processes and to do what you document.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Apr 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781119479338

Frank B. Watts

Frank Watts has over forty-eight years of industrial and consultation experience as a design engineer, industrial engineer, manufacturing engineer, systems analyst, project manager, and in management. He founded his own specialist configuration management company to provide specific expertise in product release, change control, bills of material and other engineering documentation control issues. Formally a director of engineering services, a director of operations and a director of manufacturing engineering, Watts has worked for Caterpillar, Collins Radio, Control Data, Storage Technology, UFE and Archive. He has guided the development of engineering change control processes at numerous companies and made significant contributions towards improving new product release processes, installing MRP/ERP systems and new numbering systems, as well as helping companies attain a single BOM database and guided reengineering of CM processes. He is an NDIA Certified Configuration and Data Manager, author of several magazine articles and author of the Engineering Documentation Control Handbook and CM Metrics.

Book preview

Part I

COMPANY EDC/CM POLICY

Definition

To define the company policies toward the engineering documentation control/configuration management, the CM organization and management with the rest of the company.

Chapter 1

Policy Statement

Purpose

The basic raw materials for any product manufacturing company are Tools (machines, molds, software, etc.), People (and the processes they devise), Money and a Product (embodied in drawings and specifications). Thus, the need to control and streamline the product documentation processes must be considered strategic planning for company.

To assure the lowest total product life-cycle cost as well as fast and accurate well-understood Configuration Management/Engineering Documentation Control – Product & Documentation Release, Change Request, Design Change, and Bill of Material processes. See page 5 for Why Process Speed Is Important.

To attain the benefits listed on page 5 of this standard.

Applicability

Applies to the design functions and other functions served by this configuration management organization.

Policy/Practice

To have an organized, fast, accurate and consistent process for controlling the configuration of hardware and embedded software products.

Shall consist of planning, control, identification, traceability, and reporting.

Shall consist of Release, Change Request, Change Control and Bill of Material