Solution development and verification as part of a product change management process : A case study
Häme, Otto (2024)
2024
Teknis-luonnontieteellinen DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Science and Engineering
Tekniikan ja luonnontieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2024-04-08
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404033276
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202404033276
Tiivistelmä
Manufacturing companies must continuously not only introduce new products, but also improve their existing products to stay relevant and competitive. Prototyping and verification are closely linked to especially new product development but are also vital for ensuring that the product changes can actually be implemented to production and work as intended.
The objective of this thesis is to create a way to verify and develop product changes as an integral part of product change management in a case company. The problem currently is that there are no sufficient workflows for verification and prototyping of such solutions, which causes unnecessary complications for the business.
The research questions that are answered are as follows: “How can solutions be verified as part of an engineering change management process?”, “What is the current situation in the case company’s change management?”, “What are the tasks that need to be carried out to develop and verify the solutions?”, “Who should be the responsible persons for the tasks?”. A qualitative method was selected for the research, because due to the novelty, there would not be quantitative data available.
To find the answers to these questions, both traditional and state-of-the-art literature reviews are first conducted on the key concepts related to the topic, which are product change management, solution development, and verification & validation. Additionally, a current state analysis of the product change and development processes provides input for the theoretical framework. Based on the analysed elements, a preliminary process is then created, which is used as a base for semi-structured interviews. The interviews provide information for developing the process to its final form.
The final result of the research is a comprehensive 38-step process, which includes all general tasks and related responsibilities required to verify solutions such as new options or other significant changes before the normal change engineering to the existing products and change implementation. The process is proposed to be implemented and integrated to the current product change process in the case company and accompanying tools to support it to be developed.
The objective of this thesis is to create a way to verify and develop product changes as an integral part of product change management in a case company. The problem currently is that there are no sufficient workflows for verification and prototyping of such solutions, which causes unnecessary complications for the business.
The research questions that are answered are as follows: “How can solutions be verified as part of an engineering change management process?”, “What is the current situation in the case company’s change management?”, “What are the tasks that need to be carried out to develop and verify the solutions?”, “Who should be the responsible persons for the tasks?”. A qualitative method was selected for the research, because due to the novelty, there would not be quantitative data available.
To find the answers to these questions, both traditional and state-of-the-art literature reviews are first conducted on the key concepts related to the topic, which are product change management, solution development, and verification & validation. Additionally, a current state analysis of the product change and development processes provides input for the theoretical framework. Based on the analysed elements, a preliminary process is then created, which is used as a base for semi-structured interviews. The interviews provide information for developing the process to its final form.
The final result of the research is a comprehensive 38-step process, which includes all general tasks and related responsibilities required to verify solutions such as new options or other significant changes before the normal change engineering to the existing products and change implementation. The process is proposed to be implemented and integrated to the current product change process in the case company and accompanying tools to support it to be developed.