Electronic Change Management

Challenges

Rapid market changes require that every manufacturing company makes changes to products simply, quickly, and completely. However, if changes are documented analogously and passed on across departments, information is not immediately accessible to each employee, and processes are confusing and time-consuming.

Goal: Central & automated control of the entire change process

The aim of the Kistler Group was central and automated control of their entire change process – from the idea of change to its implementation in the affected departments of the company, e.g. with automatic task assignment and a real-time viewable status of the change.

Implemented: Complete changes in the shortest time

Thanks to the electronic and automated control of the entire change process, the Kistler Group is now able to process and implement changes in the shortest possible time.

Assessing the impact of a change helps the Kistler Group to choose the optimal action.

The entire product change process is now transparent. This means that, for example, the current status of a change or the re-introduction of a product can be viewed in real time.

Plan efficiently and track changes

Changes can already be assigned to the correct processing at the beginning of implementation. This is calculated via the product structure, from which the responsible departments can be determined.

What the process highlights:

• where there are bottlenecks,
• who is working on which change with which priority and for how long,
• who has to do which task and in which order,
• what has already been done and what decisions have been made, etc.

It then allows staff to plan the change process efficiently and keep track of it until the appropriate measures have been taken in the relevant departments.

Advantageous cross-departmental change management

• Electronic cross-departmental change management within the Kistler Group also provides all employees with information about vital changes in the product data. Comparison tools illustrate all changes to master data, structures, and documents at a glance.
• Information on both versions of a product (before and after changes have been carried out) provides insight into how something has changed and how a stock list or work schedule will change.
• As a result, the potential effects of a change can be surmised beforehand to ensure the implementation of a systematically planned and organized change process.
• The information needed to carry out any task in the system is already available and easily accessible. Workflow information and tasks are linked to the product to be changed and correspond to a step in the change process.
• Where there was once an inefficient paper-trail, there is now a smart solution that allows for centralized and automated control of all processes.