Change Request Execution Guideline for R&D

Abstract

The case company has been utilizing the change request approach to formally manage internal and external requests and demands to alter a product, a process, or a service. In the R&D section, despite the highly skilled team, the efficiency of the change requests has been questioned. This is due to the time consumed to define the testing scope, and test targets for various types of alterations such as design changes, or main components changes. Which directly impacts the team utilization and influences the cost of engineering internally and externally. Accordingly, This thesis aims to develop a comprehensive guideline to enhance the change request execution process for the R&D department of the case company.

The applied research approach is applied to investigate the current business problems that necessitate an urgent resolution or outcome to be delivered to managers and stakeholders. This study utilized qualitative data methods for data collection. The research design involves four main stages with three data sets starting with the current state analysis that provides a summary of the current process strengths and weaknesses. The primary data sources utilized in this thesis comprise interviews with key stakeholders, workshops, and internal materials from the case company. Followed by the conceptual framework to identify potential improvement ideas based on the current state analysis output and the literature review.

This leads to a co-created initial change request execution guideline proposal aiming to streamline the change request execution process. The final guideline is validated and feedbacked, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the process.