Engineering change: a theoretical assessment and a case study

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.