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Original Date: 08/20/2001
Revision Date: 12/14/2006
Information : Engineering Change Notice Reduction Board
Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Surface Systems developed the Engineering Change Notice Reduction Board as a way of examining Engineering Change Notices to determine root causes and recommend corrective actions. The Board is comprised of designers, engineers, and upper level management.
To improve its overall design process, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Surface Systems (NE&SS-SS) needed a way to provide better visibility into the causes of Engineering Change Notices (ECNs). In addition, no method existed to prevent ECNs from recurring. To address these issues, the company implemented the ECN Reduction Board (ERB).
The ERB is comprised of two digital design engineers, a mechanical engineer, a reports group representative, and two to three first-level managers. Meetings are held monthly, and typically two to three additional individuals at random are invited to observe the process. At these meetings, the Board evaluates and categorizes all digital hardware ECNs; performs root cause analysis on preventable ECNs; and identifies and incorporates process/tool/training corrective actions.
Engineers originating an ECN present the root cause and corrective action to the ERB. The Board can either approve or disapprove the corrective action. If the Board disagrees with the recommendation, the engineer is given an opportunity to defend the proposed corrective action. The Board review is repeated until all parties agree on the suggested corrective action. At that time, the ERB assigns individuals to map the processes and determine the costs associated with implementing the corrective action. At the next meeting, the responsible individuals present their reports to the Board which, in turn, adopts a corrective action. To prevent ECNs from recurring, a database tracking process is used.
Since implementing the ERB, Lockheed Martin NE&SS-SS realized a $1.7 million cost avoidance savings. Additional benefits include improved design practices and tools, and a reduction in ECNs, rework, and cycle time.
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