Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Abstract: there are a variety of changes in the process of automobile research and development, which will occur in all stages of the project research and development, and there is a great risk to the smooth development of the project. Combined with the actual changes in automobile research and development, this paper analyzes in detail the contents and stages of the changes, systematically combs the laws of the changes, and summarizes the forms of the changes. and put forward effective change management methods and simple and clear change process, which is conducive to avoid unnecessary changes and effectively manage changes in the future automobile research and development, and save the change costs and management costs caused by changes.

Preface

Automobile R & D is an integrated engine, chassis, sheet metal, interior and exterior decoration, modeling and other different types of long-cycle development project, the development cycle is 2 ~ 3 years. Throughout the development cycle, the development content of each department varies greatly. Automotive R & D project managers need to take into account the R & D progress in different stages of each region, need to organically manage the time schedule and quality objectives, to ensure that the new model SOP according to the plan, smoothly put into the market. Project managers hope that the whole project research and development process can be smooth, timely SOP, priority to seize the market, to achieve good sales. However, there will be a lot of changes in the actual R & D process of the project, which will lead to more manpower, material resources and time investment. Major changes, no matter how much manpower and money are invested, will lead to delays in SOP and even termination of the project. These are what the company leaders and project managers do not want to see. Then, how to avoid changes in project research and development and how to deal with the changes, which is a very important work for automotive R & D project managers.

The research shows that most companies are implementing change management, and the EWO (Engineering Work Order) change management system based on General Motors is the most characteristic. At present, there are a variety of standards and specifications in different regions of the world to guide the management of engineering design change process. For example, the VDA4965-based change process proposed by VDA (German Federation of Automobile Industry), the SASIG (International Organization for Standardization) strives to establish a global unified change standard, and the CMII standard put forward by ICM (International configuration Management Association). The CMII standard proposed by ICM Association is called "the infrastructure of enterprise business information". It provides a complete set of product definitions and the specification of engineering change management throughout the product development life cycle. However, it does not systematically sort out the content, cause and stage of the change.

1 the content of the change

From the perspective of the current domestic automobile industry, if you want to occupy the market more advantageously than your competitors, the rapid introduction of new models is undoubtedly the best strategy. The so-called preconception is to put new models into the market at the first time, which is also the top priority of the car company's strategy. Therefore, shortening the development time has become an issue of concern to the leaders and project managers of every automobile company.

Since the development time of the model is so important, it is particularly important to avoid changes and effectively manage changes during the development process. However, in the 2-3 years of new model development, the market has been changing, customer demand has also changed, the goal defined at the beginning of the project, with the passage of time, has been unable to meet the needs of the market that is about to be put into. It is inevitable that changes will occur at this time.

The content of the change includes the change of vehicle configuration, the change of modeling, the change of parts and the change of vehicle performance. The shape determined at the beginning of the project may not necessarily win the favor of users after it is put into the market, and the requirements of styling change are often put forward in the project car verification stage.

The performance of the whole vehicle, such as NVH performance, can not be achieved through virtual verification before OTS (full tooling sample) is built, and the real vehicle verification NVH performance can not reach the preset target. At this time, measures such as sound absorbing cotton and vibration isolation pad will be added. There are thousands of auto parts, some of which are defined as black gray box parts. the main technology of such parts is in the hands of suppliers, and the research and development progress of the mainframe factory is greatly affected by the changes in parts.

2 the main reasons for the change

Generally speaking, the main reasons for the change are as follows.

(1) the styling does not meet the preferences of customers, so it is required to adjust the styling style, A face, color, skin pattern and so on.

(2) the parts do not meet the design requirements, so they are often judged by experience in the data release stage, so it is difficult to find the part problems, and the problems are not found until the parts are tested.

(3) the car construction does not meet the assembly requirements, and the problems occurred in the trial production of welding and assembly in the workshop, which can not be completely virtual verified in the data stage.

(4) the road test verification does not meet the durability requirements, and the problems occurred in the vehicle and engine durable road test.

(5) the component subsystem test does not meet the subsystem test specification, and there are some problems in the subsystem planning of a single component, such as high and low temperature durability, material, subsystem function test and so on.

(6) the vehicle performance does not meet the previous goals, such as power, comfort, NVH and other performance problems.

(7) the static perception quality does not meet the set goals, such as seat fabric comfort, ride comfort, door opening and closing power, sound perception and so on.

(8) the market strategy adjustment, when the sample car is ready, the market proposes that it is not what the user wants, and the configuration function needs to be adjusted.

The above covers the reasons for most of the changes in product development, which do not occur out of thin air, but are shown through review, car building, testing, etc., in all stages of product development. In the whole development process, node control mainly includes the following aspects:

① T2 data Review

② styling review

③ perceived quality Review

④ test driving review

⑤ Market Strategy change

⑥ car building problem

TIR problem of ⑦ road test

⑧ subsystem experiment.

3 the stage at which the change occurs

In the "GM" research and development process, it is mainly divided into the following stages.

(1) in the VDR phase, the shape has locked the final A face. The styling changes that occur after the VDR stage, such as large style adjustments for internal and external decoration, should belong to styling changes.

(2) the product development basically completes the data state locking in the VDR node.

The configuration adjustment of the node after VDR belongs to the change of the part, such as the adjustment of the function of the part, the change of the structure and so on.

(3) the vehicle verification and mold development phase have begun in VDR. If there are verification problems and mold problems, the parts will be changed. As you can see from figure 1, the change occurs after VDR.

Figure 1 the stage in which the change occurred

4 effective change management tools and methods

At present, General Motors has established an engineering change process with general characteristics, which mainly depends on the engineering work instruction EWO (Engineering Work Order) to achieve engineering change instructions in the vehicle development and production cycle. In addition to the engineering changes implemented by EWO, it should also be supported by other systems.

When a change occurs, you should first determine the parts involved in the change and organize the relevant parts into a list. The second is to determine the areas involved in changing parts, such as modeling, PE, ME, procurement, quality and other related departments. The relevant area will be informed through the change parts theme meeting, and the engineer will implement the change through EWO.

Finally, the project manager collects the development plan of the changed parts, reviews the progress regularly, organizes the material breakpoint special meeting in the final verification phase, coordinates the implementation of the change in each region, and shuts down the change system after the completion of the review and verification. Throughout the process, the project manager can monitor the change implementation process through the Openissue list manager change problem progress, part list, EWO list, change part implementation plan.

5 change management process

In addition to effective change management tools, there should be a reasonable change management process. The change management process in figure 2 can be used as a reference for actual project change management. Because all changes will be implemented in the parts, PE needs to play a leading role in the whole change. For example, feedback the change parts list, inform the relevant area personnel, implement the changes, verify and close the problem.

Figure 2 change process

Project managers need to put the change issues into the OPENISSUE table, and can organize special meetings as needed, continuously maintain the change parts list throughout the change process, continuously follow the change parts development plan, and coordinate the change implementation verification. Modeling, static perception, dynamic perception, data management, marketing, production start-up, final assembly process, quality department, etc., need to assist in change verification and closure.

6 conclusion

The problem of change is very complex, and project managers need to invest more manpower, material resources and time to solve it. How to effectively avoid the occurrence of changes? Combined with years of project management experience and other automotive project management experience, changes in the R & D process can not be completely avoided, the main reasons are as follows: automotive R & D is difficult to make leaders and customers fully satisfied, the market is always changing, in order to better adapt to the market, the adjustment before SOP is inevitable, although virtual analysis has been very accurate, but single virtual verification can not replace the actual situation. No matter which car company develops a model, it needs to be verified by a real car.

Change is inevitable, but it is not helpless. Project managers can optimize change management: try to make the review of changes take place in the early stages of the project. For example, the final version of modeling An and T2 data review before the organization of pre-review, so that the problem is exposed in advance. Carry on the soft engineering to build the car before the formal construction, and verify the perceived quality and performance problems in advance. Only by discovering the problem in advance can the problem be solved in advance. Control changes according to the ideas and methods of change management. The optimized node control is shown in figure 3.

Fig. 3 optimized node control

For the project, there are brand-new projects, medium-sized projects, annual model projects, etc., each project strategy is different, the positioning is different, the definition of the change scope is also different, so the content of each project change can not be exactly the same. Although different projects have different changes, it is not difficult to find that all the changes have a characteristic, that is, the vast majority belong to the "four new parts" (i.e. new structure, new materials, new processes, new suppliers). Project management can define such parts at the initial stage and focus on tracking during the development process, which can greatly reduce the probability of change.

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