ABSTRACT
It is a very difcult task to maintain conguration control of the product design. During the period prior to preliminary design review (PDR), the design concept may be very volatile. Once the product is deployed into the customer’s environment and placed in service, modications may expand the conguration control difculty for both the engineering and manufacturing data and the actual product articles in use. When we think of conguration management we most often think of maintaining the relationship between the actual product articles and the engineering drawings representing that product article. This is a proper role of a conguration management organization: to assure that the product and engineering documentation agree for specic articles. But, there are many other representations of the product articles that should be conguration managed and conguration management organizations do not always accept responsibility for these other representations. Someone must accept the responsibility.
