Overview of the Engineering Change Management Process in a Complex Multi-Domain System

The development of products and systems is becoming more complex and difficult. The inclusion of additional functions in mechatronic systems, the demand for highly customized products and shorter development cycles with changing requirements are additional challenges for engineers. The wiring harness is one example where these challenges accumulate. New functions concerning autonomous driving and infotainment systems are examples for two trends driving these challenges. Engineering change management ensures, that all changes are implemented in the system by providing the processes, tools and methods to track and manage changes. The current literature provides general and therefore limited representation of change management processes. That makes it difficult to apply them to specific cases. Especially, for complex multi-domain systems with high number of changes. This underlines why engineering change management is generally seen as an important field of research and one of the biggest challenges in the wiring harness development. This research proposes an engineering change process for the wiring harness, that focuses on the steps and analyses how the different engineering domains are integrated. One additional focus lies on the occurrence of change triggers and how those can be incorporated effectively. This research creates a common understanding of engineering change management in the wiring harness and similar industries. It provides a basis for further research. Members in the industry who seek to improve their process, can use it as a reference process.