Change management

Brings the change control procedure required by the IATF (International Automotive Task Force) into Business Central, following the 6M principles. It walks a change from the internal decision through customer approval to the post-rollout effectiveness check — with no paper, right where the manufacturing data already lives.

Platform

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Type

Extension (AL)

Standard

IATF 16949 — 6M, APQP

Languages

Hungarian, English, German

Licence

Demo mode up to 50 documents, subscription beyond

At a manufacturer audited to IATF, every change — a material swap, a new supplier, a routing change, a machine replacement — has to be documented: who decided on it, what evidence was produced, whether customer approval was needed, and whether it worked after rollout. In many places that process lives on paper or in Excel sheets passed around by e-mail, where a signature is easy to lose and a deadline easy to miss.

The app runs the same process inside Business Central. Based on the setup, the change request document builds its own decision list and task lists, calculates the deadlines, and only opens the next step once the previous one is complete. Everyone involved sees the tasks waiting for them on their role centre.

The system handles seven document states from preparation to closure, and it advances the state itself — the user does not set it. That makes it traceable in an audit when a given change went into production, on whose decision, and with what supporting evidence.

• 6M matrix and change categories

  Each type of change can be mapped to the actions and documents its rollout requires — DFMEA, control plan, packaging specification, trial production report and the rest. The document generates its own task list from that.

• Internal decision chain

  Every department assigned to the area makes its own decision, and only then does the final decision maker close the loop. A rejection must be justified; every decision maker has a substitute.

• Evidence and attachments

  The documents required by the matrix must be uploaded before a task can be set to done — the app will not let it through otherwise. They can be downloaded from the info panel in one click.

• Four-eyes task verification

  Completed actions are verified by the decision makers assigned to the area — nobody can approve their own task. On rejection the task goes back to the person responsible.

• Customer approval (PCN, waiver)

  If the change needs customer approval, the app assembles and sends the approval request from the uploaded documents, then holds the document until the customer response is uploaded.

• PDCA effectiveness check

  After rollout, the before and after values can be recorded per KPI. The app calculates the deadline when the document moves to active state.

• Task lists on the role centre

  Everyone sees only their own open tasks, ordered by deadline. An overdue row is red, one due within a week is blue — the list is placed on six role centres.

• Automated background tasks

  A daily job closes expired temporary documents and sends a weekly notice about them. The subject and body of both internal and customer e-mails are editable, and document data can be substituted in with placeholders.

• Reports

  Document printing, period statistics on change requests, and a setup summary that tabulates the areas, departments, categories and registered users.

The app is written in AL and installs as a Business Central extension. The installer performs the basic setup: it registers the administrator, creates the number series for the documents, and adds the scheduled task to the job queue. Notification e-mails require an e-mail account configured in Business Central.

AL Dynamics 365 BC Extension IATF 16949 Job Queue

• User manual From setup to the PDCA check, with screenshots
• Demo video (opens in a new tab) The app in brief (YouTube)