Requirements-based development of an improved engineering change management method

Engineering changes (ECs) are essential in complex product development, and their management is a crucial discipline for engineering industries. Numerous methods have been developed to support EC management (ECM), of which the change prediction method (CPM) is one of the most established. This article contributes a requirements-based benchmarking approach to assess and improve existing methods. The CPM is selected to be improved. First, based on a comprehensive literature survey and insights from industrial case studies, a set of 25 requirements for change management methods are developed. Second, these requirements are used as benchmarking criteria to assess the CPM in comparison to seven other promising methods. Third, the best-in-class solutions for each requirement are investigated to draw improvement suggestions for the CPM. Finally, an enhanced ECM method which implements these improvements is presented. © 2013 © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

Component-based approach to the holonic control of a robot assembly cell

The aim of this paper is to describe the implementation of a new approach for the introduction of so called 'holonic manufacturing' principles into existing production control systems. Such an approach is intended to improve the reconfigurability of the control system to cope with the increasing requirements of production change. A conceptual architecture is described and implemented in a robot assembly cell to demonstrate that this approach can lead to a manufacturing control system which can adapt relatively simply to long-term change. A design methodology and migration strategy for achieving these solutions using conventional hardware is proposed to develop execution level of manufacturing control systems.