Supplier relationships in the automotive industry have changed fundamentally in recent decades owing to trends such as less vertical integration, global sourcing, simultaneous engineering, and the Internet. Suppliers have become much more important in terms of both production and development. The ability to manage engineering changes (EC) efficiently and reliably reflects the capability of the whole supply chain. EC is a modification of a product's component after the product has entered serial production. This paper reviews engineering change management (ECM) and the application of lean methods into the product development process. The conclusions from the literature review are summarised in a model for assessing the maturity level of lean ECM. The model is tested within eight automotive component and system suppliers of different sizes, from 196 up to 77000 employees. The result of the survey is a comprehensive overview of ECM status with automotive suppliers. An important conclusion is that ECM should begin already during product development process. Knowledge management was recognised as a key enabler for reducing the number of ECs.
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