Engineering Documentation Control Handbook (eBook)

Preface

The wide acceptance of this book has been very gratifying. This work seems to have taken on a life of its own. The publisher wrote: “Your book over the last year has resulted in the most ‘Buy This Book’ links of our entire catalog … It is very well received by the ‘Googleites.’ ” Sales have exceeded 10,000 at the writing of this third edition.

Why? While management fads come and go, buzz-word programs abound, software acronyms and software applications ebb and flow, the basics of engineering documentation control remain the same. The author thinks of himself as “the Vince Lombardi of document control.” Basic blocking and tackling! When the publisher asked for a third edition, it was therefore difficult to think of ways to add value. Some restructuring, editing, and much clarification has been done. The index is improved. New chapters on the Supply Chain and on Implementation are combinations of new material and a consolidation of information that was scattered elsewhere in the book.

Whether you think of this subject as Engineering Documentation Control (EDC) or Configuration Management (CM), it needs to be recognized as a key business strategy. The wall or gap between Engineering and the rest of the world has existed too long in many companies. The “throw it over the wall” syndrome can be overcome. It is prevalent in new product releases, bills of material, change requests, and change processes. Simple, make-sense, fast, accurate, efficient, measured, and well-understood Engineering Documentation Control/Configuration Management can tear down that wall—bridge that gap.

The title of this book indicates that Engineering Documentation Control and Configuration Management are equivalent terms. But are they really? Many people feel that EDC is a subset of CM. Some think of EDC as what they are currently doing and CM as what they ought to be doing. Much of this discussion is in “the eyes of the beholder.”

Historically, the CM term was largely invented by the Defense Industry and the Department of Defense (DOD). The term had been used and abused so extensively by this segment of our manufacturing world that it had taken on a parochial and a very complex meaning. Commercial businesses began taking back the CM term in a simplified form. Many defense product manufacturers have been moving toward commercial practices—simplified Configuration Management—a healthy trend. Of late, the software configuration management folks have largely usurped the CM term for application of CM to the development and production of software tools. The author is thus all the more pleased to have consistently used the Engineering Documentation Control term.

Can CM in a Defense Industry context be made simple? A study published in National Defense magazine, September 1992, by George Krikorian, PE, summarizes the conditions at that time. “The results revealed that the cost of a product when selling to DOD increases from five percent to one-hundred percent as compared to the same or similar product cost to a commercial (non-DOD) enterprise.” One of the significant reasons given was MIL-SPECS and Standards. Configuration Management standards make up a significant portion of the total DOD Specs and Standards. There has been some significant reform in the DOD, however, so the hope for military contractors and taxpayers is improving.

The primary goal of this book is to keep CM simple. The basics of Best in Class Configuration Management will be presented from the ground up, for application in either a “commercial” or “military” kind of business.

Meanwhile, some in the commercial segment are erroneously moving toward more complex CM. The Automotive and Aeronautical segments have written their own versions of ISO standards adding a layer of bureaucracy that is making our autos and air transport expensive, adding little value or safety to the products. The FDA continues to make their requirements excessive. The ISO standards have evolved but not necessarily for the better. While claiming to be more general and less specific, the page count has, nevertheless, increased significantly.

The typical CM approach is to acquire and read all the applicable commercial and Military Specs, Standards, and Directives, and then design the system around them. On the contrary, every manufacturing business should develop a simple, make-sense, fast, accurate, efficient, measured, and well-understood approach to Engineering Documentation Control/Configuration Management and then examine the DOD, MIL, DOE, FDA, ISO/QS/AS, and all other applicable agency standards. After careful examination of those standards, add or modify that approach to satisfy the customer/agency specifications, as and if necessary.

Since the first edition of this book, many companies have become ISO/AS/QS-certified. Write down what you do and do what you have written, it is said. They have also come to realize that the certification only gets their CM practices minimally documented and followed. A significant majority of ISO requirements and problems involve the CM discipline, but there is no built-in assurance in the ISO certification that the processes are efficient, measured, productive, or that they out-perform the competition. Thus, writing down what you do and doing what is written is a form of insanity, which is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. The emphasis of this book is not on ISO requirements. The emphasis is on helping people help their companies toward exceptional CM processes.

The quick release of new product documentation, minimal structuring of a single Bill of Material database, the ability to request changes, and to change the documentation and product quickly and accurately are critical to a company’s profitability. Thus, the development and implementation of a simple, make-sense, fast, accurate, efficient, measured, and well-understood CM system is an important business strategy. Simply put, it sets the stage for innovation in Engineering and Operations.

The basic principles of world class EDC/CM are applicable, regardless of the kind of manufacturing or the kind of customer. Toward achieving this make-sense approach, the following will be the guiding principles of this book:

• Develop a generic approach that is good for commercial or agency-regulated companies. Many of the existing texts on this subject address DOD Specifications and Standards. This work takes a generic approach.
• Take the acronyms out wherever possible! The typical text uses an index of over eight pages of acronyms and abbreviations. The goal here will be to only use those acronyms which are universal in the manufacturing business and to explain each where it is first used.
• Use the English language, defining terms as we go, as opposed to using, for example, over twenty pages of glossary found in one text.
• Take the jargon, mystique, double-talk, fads, and unnecessary complexity out of Configuration Management.
• Systematically approach the discipline by using an example product—an electronic ignition, software programmed, front-end loader with a variety of features and options. Develop the design documentation for this product, structure the bills of material with operations people, release it from engineering to manufacturing, request changes, change it, and close the loop by knowing when each change was made and what is in each product as needed.
• Develop principles that are sound for any size company, while recognizing the nuances that may be present in small, large, multinational, make-to-print, make-to-stock, design-to-order, or other types of discrete product manufacturing.
• Develop principles that are sound for any type of product, while recognizing differences in products that vary from needles to nuclear ships, and production rates that vary from quantities per second to years per quantity one.
• Emphasize early costing of the product and changes, a generally ignored aspect of CM practice.
• Show how redundant Bills of Material can be eliminated, how to simplify the Bill of Material structuring, and how to evolve bills in lead-time to produce the product.
• Develop generic CM processes in the form of flow diagrams and standards to use as a guide in the development of your own processes. Assure that the horse (documentation) comes before the cart (the product).
• Establish methods for achieving fast processing of releases, requests, and changes. The emphasis will be on speed—a long overlooked criteria—oversight of which proves to be a costly. This will be accomplished while improving quality, not hurrying up to do it wrong!
• Outline methods for...