In complex, high-stakes industries like aerospace & defense and aviation, small oversights in the early stages of development can lead to costly and time-consuming corrections downstream. That’s where the often-dreaded engineering change order (ECO) comes into play. Whether you’re dealing with a minor engineering change request (ECR) or a large-scale adjustment late in the product development lifecycle, ECOs are a crucial part of the engineering change management process.
But while they serve an important purpose, poorly managed ECOs can introduce risk, trigger production delays and burden teams with rework.
This blog post dives into the engineering change order process, with a focus on late-stage ECOs: why they happen, how to prevent them and how to manage them effectively if they do occur.
Continue reading for:
- Actionable tips to help your engineering team reduce unnecessary changes from the start of a project
- Techniques for improving communication among project stakeholders
- Digital tools to streamline approval cycles, regulatory compliance and more
What is an engineering change order (ECO)?
An engineering change order (ECO) is a formal document that outlines proposed changes to a product’s design, components, or associated documentation. An engineering change order can also be referred to as an engineering change notice (ECN) or an engineering change request (ECR).
An engineering change order serves as a critical tool in engineering change management, ensuring that any alterations are systematically evaluated, approved, and implemented. The resources required for implementing the changes are also identified during this process.
Key components of an ECO include details about the reason for the change, affected parts and assemblies, updated drawings, and any relevant cost information. The engineering change order process involves review and and a well-defined approval process by key stakeholders. These stakeholders include engineering, quality assurance, procurement, and manufacturing, as well as the change control board. Maintaining clear documentation throughout the product’s lifecycle is crucial for reducing risks, preventing design errors, and ensuring effective collaboration throughout development.
The engineering change process: triggers for initiating an ECO
There are several situations that can trigger an engineering change order, including documentation changes, product design changes, regulatory/standards updates, quality/safety issues and component/material changes:
- Documentation changes: any revision or modification to project documentation, such as drawings, schematics or manuals. For example, if a product schematic needs to be updated to reflect specifications that were missed in the initial design phase, a change order will be triggered to ensure all stakeholders are aware of the modification.
- Product design changes: any change to the product’s design, functionality or specifications. For example, in aviation manufacturing, the decision to upgrade an aircraft’s avionics system will trigger an ECO.
- Regulatory/standards updates: any change to an industry standard, internal standard or regulation. Industry standards and regulations, like those from AIA/NAS, SAE, ICAO or the FAA, are frequently updated/revised. Whenever a standard or regulation is changed, the entire project lifecycle must be reviewed to see how the updates will affect the project, often triggering a change order.
- Component/material changes: if a component or material becomes obsolete, unavailable or too costly, an engineering change order will be issued to determine an alternative. Tariffs and supply chain disruptions can impact the availability and cost of materials and components commonly used in aerospace/aviation manufacturing.
- Quality/safety issues: if any quality or safety issues are identified during the validation phase, an ECO will be triggered to address them. Fatigue cracking is an issue that is commonly identified when aircraft components are tested and can trigger a change order to identify and implement new materials.
Common challenges with the ECO process
Although engineering change orders are often seen as disruptions, they are beneficial when properly executed. They provide a structured, traceable way to implement necessary changes and ensure that all modifications are reviewed, approved and documented. Many times, these changes are imperative to prevent safety or quality issues. A standardized ECO process not only enhances consistency across projects but also supports quality control by reducing errors and ensuring all changes are well-documented and evaluated for their potential impact. ECOs can also address manufacturing problems by evaluating and quantifying the impact of changes on individual items or the broader manufacturing process.
However, late-stage engineering changes can have significant ramifications on a project. Consider an engineering team that invested significant amounts of time, money and labor into developing a new aircraft component. They built new tools to craft the component, sourced raw materials from overseas, did extensive design work and labor to create the component and submitted it for third-party testing. During the testing phase, fatigue cracking within the component was detected. A root cause analysis determined that the team used the wrong material, failing to meet a requirement that was specified in a standard that was inadvertently overlooked.
Small decisions like this that are made during the early stage of product development can lead to unplanned change orders much later in the process. Poorly managed ECOs can lead to significant resource waste, causing inefficiencies and additional costs. Late-stage engineering change orders can create significant challenges for engineering teams, leading to:
- Production delays
- Extra labor dedicated to root cause analysis
- Additional costs for third party testing and new materials
- Rework
- Delay in products going to market
How to prevent late-stage ECOs
Although engineering change orders can’t be completely avoided, having a defined process is crucial in preventing late-stage ECOs. Ensuring all teams are on the same page is essential to prevent miscommunications and costly redesigns.
Teams can use the following strategies to avoid late-stage engineering change orders:
Clearly define project requirements
Clearly defining requirements at the start of a project: it seems so simple, but poorly defined requirements and specifications are often the culprit of engineering change orders. Miscommunications between the design team and suppliers, failing to define requirements for every part of a project, ambiguous wording and limited access to standards/regulations can all result in downstream change orders. Involving key stakeholders in defining project requirements ensures that all relevant parties are aligned from the beginning.
In the early stages of a project, engineers can minimize problems by:
- Using clear language and standardized terminology
- Mapping requirements from the original source to design elements using a digital thread
- Reviewing requirements with all project stakeholders – engineering, compliance, procurement, vendors and suppliers
Strengthen collaboration and communication across teams and suppliers
Late-stage ECOs often stem from poor communication across teams or gaps in coordination among stakeholders. In large, complex aerospace & defense projects with multiple suppliers, vendors and engineers, collaboration breakdowns can lead to costly mistakes or oversights.
Strengthening communication early and throughout the project lifecycle is critical. This includes establishing a single source of truth – a centralized digital library where stakeholders can access the most up-to-date, version-controlled project requirements, standards, specifications and technical documents. Ensuring all teams are on the same page helps prevent miscommunications and costly redesigns.
Regular project scope reviews, clear update protocols and immediate change notifications ensure that no one is left in the dark if a change order occurs. Notifying affected individuals about significant updates is essential for maintaining effective communication and collaboration. By promoting transparency and alignment, organizations can dramatically reduce the risk of rework, delays and unexpected ECOs caused by conflicting or outdated information.
Learn how Accuris improved Sasol’s collaboration with suppliers
Automate standards/regulations updates
Automating standards/regulations updates can be a powerful tool in managing change orders. Aerospace & defense projects often span many years and over the course of a project, the regulatory landscape can shift dramatically. Requirements defined at the beginning of a project may no longer meet current regulations by the time the project reaches the verification and validation stage. Additionally, updates to industry standards referenced within regulations can trigger a cascade of changes across a project.
Manually monitoring these updates is not only time and labor intensive, but also error-prone. Intelligent standards management platforms simplify this process by enabling engineers to set up automated alerts for when a standard is updated or a new version is released. Some platforms even include AI-powered comparison tools that highlight the exact differences between versions of a standard, making it easier to assess the impact on projects. Using automated standards notification tools also helps create an audit trail for regulatory audits.
By eliminating the manual burden of tracking standards changes, engineering teams can respond faster and more accurately – reducing the risk of costly-late stage ECOs driven by overlooked regulatory changes.
Create a robust digital thread
Digital threads are a powerful tool for managing late-stage engineering change orders. A digital thread creates a continuous flow of information by linking together all project data – from requirements and specifications to engineering decisions and compliance documentation – across the entire product lifecycle. This unified, centralized framework acts as a single source of truth, allowing engineers and stakeholders to trace every change back to its origin and understand its downstream impacts. Additionally, maintaining a historical record within the digital thread is crucial for future reference, enabling efficient tracking of changes and informed decision-making.
When requirements evolve or standards are updated, a digital thread helps teams quickly see what’s affected and why, making it easier to evaluate changes, reduce errors and avoid costly delays. Without this level of visibility and traceability, organizations risk operating in silos, which can lead to miscommunication and inefficiencies.
Digital tools to help prevent or streamline ECOs
Managing engineering change orders effectively requires a carefully designed digital infrastructure to support traceability, collaboration, compliance, and rapid decision-making. The following digital tools can help streamline the ECO process, minimize manual effort, and reduce the risk of errors and delays:
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Systems: these tools are essential for managing engineering data, change requests, and product configurations across the entire lifecycle. A modern cloud-based PLM system enhances collaboration, automates workflows, and ensures compliance. Popular PLM tools include PTC Windchill, Autodesk Fusion Manage and Vault, and Siemens Teamcenter.
- Automated requirements extraction and management tools: tools like Accuris Thread™ automatically identify and extract requirements from standards, reducing the time spent manually identifying requirements and decreasing the risk of human error.
- Automatic standards update notifications: tools like Micro-Alerts in Accuris Engineering Workbench provide automatic alerts whenever standards or certain regulations are updated. This is often quicker and more reliable than relying on SDOs or regulatory agencies to notify users about updates. Automated notifications keep stakeholders informed about the status of change orders, enhancing efficiency and decision-making.
- Smart comparison tools: intelligent document-comparison tools like Smart Compare in Engineering Workbench can highlight exactly what has changed when a standard is updated. Real-time collaboration using these tools improves communication and decision-making among stakeholders.
Simplify the engineering change process with Accuris
Engineering change orders don’t have to be a burden to your projects. Talk with one of our experts or learn more about how our solutions can help you take control of the engineering change order process.