Processes: Change Control Board (CCB)CCB is one of those processes where proposed changes from Engineering (or theoretically anyone) are ‘approved’ by the members of this board. The members are usually from disciplines such as Purchasing, Production Control, Quality, Service/Repair, Manufacturing Engineering etc. Since we are in a startup phase, some of these functions may not even exist yet but the need to formally control engineering changes is still critical. At one company, our CCB consisted of myself the lead engineer and the configuration management person. I wore many hats so I had the responsibility of several functional areas. The key to all of this was that each change or Engineering Change Order (ECO) was reviewed by the group and if correct, was approved. This approval included changing the ‘Revision’ on drawings and/or BOMs so that the latest change was always in the MRP/ERP system. The revision consisted of either a letter or number or combination thereof. So if the current revision was ‘A’ and the engineer makes a change, the revision would change to ‘B’. The next change to ‘C’ and so on.This simple but powerful tool helped eliminate ‘on the fly without thought’ changes, as now they had to be reviewed and approved. It also eliminated the type of mistake I described on the PROCESSES home page.
This process can be done very quickly if you have a good configuration management person at the helm. ECOs can literally be walked around and signed off without having a formalized meeting if need be. Having CCB also instilled control into a sometimes-chaotic environment and brought Engineering and Operations closer together so that we worked more closely as a team.
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