ECO types and stages¶
Engineering change orders (ECOs) are categorized by the type of change they represent and their statuses are tracked via stages. Both ECO types and stages are defined by the user and can be customized to the specific needs of a business or industry.
ECO types¶
Each ECO type separates ECOs into different projects in the PLM Overview, ensuring collaborators and stakeholders only view and assist with relevant BoM improvements.
Example
An electronic chip manufacturer uses five ECO types: New Product Introduction, BOM Updates,
Component Change, Product Improvement, and Firmware Update. In their configuration,
engineers can spend time exclusively on ECOs in the Component Change and Firmware Update
types, while designers see ECOs in the New Product Introduction type, allowing each
discipline to focus only on those changes that require their domain expertise.
Create an ECO type¶
To access and manage ECO types, navigate to .
Create a new ECO type by clicking New. On the new ECO Types form, fill in the following information:
Name: the name of the ECO type, which will organize all of the ECOs of this type in a project.
Email Alias: if this optional field is filled, emails submitted to this email address automatically generate ECOs in the left-most stage of this ECO type.
Example
The Formulation change ECO type is used to organize and track related ECOs in a single
project. Configuring the Email Alias field generates ECOs in the Formulation
change project sent to the email address, pawlish-change@pawlished-glam.odoo.com.
Edit ECO types¶
Modify existing ECO type names and email aliases by navigating to the page. There, click on the desired ECO type from the list.
On the form for each ECO type, edit the Name or Email Alias fields.
Stages¶
Within the Engineering Change Orders Kanban view for a specific ECO type, stages are
milestones used to identify the progress of the ECO before the changes are ready to be applied. By
default, Odoo uses New, In Progress, Validated, and Effective, but these are fully
customizable to the specific life cycle of an ECO type.
Note
The Effective stage is folded by default to avoid listing every single ECO that has gone into
effect. See Closing stage for more on this configuration.
Verification stages require a designated user to approve, ensuring that changes do not proceed until the ECO changes have been reviewed by the appropriate stake holders. Closing stages that can apply changes put BoM and operations changes into immediate effect, changing all pending and future MO to the latest BoM version.
Tip
The most common practice is to have at least one verification stage, which is a stage with a required approver, and one closing stage, which stores ECOs that have been either cancelled or approved for use as the next production BoM.
See also
Verification stages¶
To configure a verification stage, hover over the intended stage, and select the (Actions). Then, click Edit to open a pop-up window and check the box for Allow to apply changes.
Next, add an approver in the Approvers section, by clicking Add a line, and specifying the Role of the reviewer, the User, and an Approval Type of Is required to approve. See more about approval types.
The approver listed is automatically notified when ECOs are dropped in the stage specified in the pop-up window. Once finished, click Save & Close.
See also
Closing stages¶
Click an ECO type from to open the Kanban view of ECOs of this type.
To configure a closing stage that applies BoM, edit the stage and tick the boxes for Folded in kanban view, Allow to apply changes, and Final Stage. When ECO cards are placed in a stage that will Allow to apply changes, then any BoM and operations changes validated in the ECOs will immediately be put into effect. To create a cancelled stage, create or edit a stage and tick the boxes for Folded in kanban view and Final Stage. ECOs in this stage are removed from the pipeline, but will not make changes.
Example
The closing stage, Effective is configured by checking the Folded in kanban view,
Allow to apply changes, and Final Stage options
