The competitive playground where nowadays firms struggle to survive has rap
idly become unforeseeable: product life cycle has shrunk, becoming even sho
rter than in the past, and world-wide market is suffering for a strong cust
omer differentiation which led to an increasingly wide product mix.
In this industrial environment, the engineering change process is getting m
ore and more attention throughout the branches of industry, as it appears a
s a critical process which seeps into the operations management core, thus
influencing the overall firm's performances.
A brief state-of-the-art in the area of engineering change is firstly prese
nted. Then a proposal of classification and a new methodology for an effect
ive engineering change process management are suggested.