Making Error a Virtue with Change Request Management

Since June 1999, ATD MP has been actively using CRM in its rolling mill projects, for which change requests (CRs) are centrally documented and consistently tracked. The core of the organizational process is a State Transition Machine (STM), represented by ClearQuest software, a tool that supports the coordinated and uniform processing of all change requests. In effect, the STM represents the implementation of the CRM specification by means of a data processing tool.

Web-based solutions

As an interface to the user, the STM tool generates webpages automatically. The user thus needs no software on his PC other than a commercially-available web browser, such as Netscape. An authorization structure, which extends down to the field level, ensures that system access is defined by person or role.

The properties of every field can be changed dynamically. This feature ensures that the active user always calls up the screen appropriate to his task or the state of the CR.

Processing change requests

Following entry, each change request is classified into one of the main groups: “System,” “Application,” “Technology,” or “Offers.” Hierarchically-dependent lists enable this classification to be refined in a second step.

The “Responsible for Analysis” role is dynamically assigned by the tool as a function of the classification. This ensures that all tasks are processed by a specialist in the area under consideration. Processing is supported through access to information in the project database for the rolling mill industry and access to data from the module database (module library).

A Change Control Board (CCB) decides on the further status of the change request, which can be accepted, postponed, or rejected. The CCB also designates the individual responsible for implementing the CR.

Extending to the commissioning phase

Following inhouse piloting of CRM during the engineering phases of projects, Siemens ATD project sites worldwide were linked together over an extranet server in January 2000. To participate, each site required Internet access, provided, in most cases, by the CompuServe account held by the majority of site managers. Internet access now gives these managers an overview of faults and problems and their solution – be it from their own offices or from the customers’ location.

Public queries open access to the most important CRM search algorithms, enabling commissioning specialists to search through the change request database as errors/problems occur. If a problem has already been identified, then the appropriate solution can be implemented on the spot. Each authorized user can also start his own private query.

One problem, one solution

E-mail notification by the tool ensures that information on a problem or error is disseminated beyond the project in which it occurs to all other projects that could conceivably be affected. This enables the elimination of a particular error right from the start – and hinders the generation of unnecessary parallel solutions.

The CR database now contains more than 400 entries. Almost half of these change requests have been processed and released.

A major step toward e-business

Based on positive experience with the change request process and the relevant tool, CRM is slated to be introduced into other MP industry sectors, giving each business unit the ability to coordinate the CRs for its own projects. In this regard, two further stages of development steps have been added.

MP-wide implementation

For central topics from automation, such as systems technology (e.g. PCS 7 or Windows NT) and basic technologies (represented through MP modules), CR databases from specific business units will soon be synchronized and made available to all MP employees. The result will be that each business unit will no longer have to solve all problems. Instead, a single, uniform procedure will be defined and imple-mented for all MP.

Promotion of customer cooperation

The installation of additional security measures (firewalls and, above all, kryptoboxes), which protect data transfer via the Internet from misuse, enables cus-tomers to submit their own claim requests to the CRM system. Following adaptation, these claim requests are processed in the internal MP CRM process and released for use. The customer can then inform himself at will on the state, analyses, decisions, and solution of the CRs he has submitted. In this way, ATD MP is able to synchronize the CRM process with the needs of its customers – and to make a notable contribution toward the realization of genuine e-business.