ABSTRACT 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.

中文翻译：

---

基于精益标准的汽车供应链工程变更管理成熟度评估模型

摘要 近几十年来，由于垂直整合减少、全球采购、同步工程和互联网等趋势，汽车行业的供应商关系发生了根本性的变化。供应商在生产和开发方面变得更加重要。高效可靠地管理工程变更 (EC) 的能力反映了整个供应链的能力。EC 是产品进入批量生产后对产品组件的修改。本文回顾了工程变更管理 (ECM) 和精益方法在产品开发过程中的应用。文献综述的结论总结在一个模型中，用于评估精益 ECM 的成熟度水平。该模型在八家不同规模的汽车零部件和系统供应商中进行了测试，从 196 名到 77000 名员工不等。调查结果是对汽车供应商 ECM 状态的全面概述。一个重要的结论是 ECM 应该在产品开发过程中就已经开始。知识管理被认为是减少 EC 数量的关键推动因素。