Manage Configuration Baseline

Managing the configuration baseline for assemblies comprises of one basic data sub process and two main sub processes:

BDR for Manage Configuration Baseline

This comprises of defining change set types to better reflect how your organization views a particular change set type. You can edit the description of change set types and the criticality of available change set types, if required.

Define Configuration Baseline

Defining the configuration baseline takes input from configuration related documents including the first revision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer's (OEM) Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) document.

Update Configuration Baseline

Revisions to the OEM's IPC, service literature such as Airworthiness Directives (ADs) and Service Bulletins (SBs) issued by the OEM, or configuration change requests necessitate the update of the configuration baseline initially defined in Maintenix. 

A copy of the configuration baseline to be updated is obtained by your Maintenix administrator on exporting configuration data from Maintenix and importing it to Allowable Configuration. Once a new revision for the OEM IPC is received, you create a change source and link it to an assembly.

You can then upload the new IPC document revision, link it to the relevant assembly and generate the baseline. Once done, you can set the status of the document revision to Ready for Analysis so that it can be sent to a engineering service partner for analysis.

Your engineering service partner is then able to extract the required data in order to analyze and determine the required changes to the configuration baseline. Once the partner has finished adding changes, they upload it to Allowable Configuration so you can view the suggested changes.

Once you have identified the part groups impacted by the suggested changes, the part group should be connected to a change source if an existing part group requires a change, or a new part group can be created. Once the change source has been modified for a part group it becomes the active change source.

For an active change source, you can view the suggested changes, categorized by the change set type, which indicates the change required. You can also see the criticality which is indicative of the action that should be taken on the change. Once you have determined the course of action for the change set, you must action the change set by:

You can also accept and reject all change sets for a particular change set type, for all the part groups on a change source, in a single operation via bulk accept or bulk reject.

If required, you can action manual changes on part groups. These are changes you have decided based on the analysis of configuration change sources of the Other type. To action these changes, you must modify the change source for the affected part group to the other type change source or create a part group for the other change source. Manual changes can then be made on the part group.

After changes have been made to part groups, you must review the configuration change source for alternate or incompatible parts that have been flagged for evaluation. If incompatible parts have been flagged for evaluation for a change source, they should be copied to the alternate part for which they were flagged, prior to setting the change source to ready for approval.

Once all the updates for a configuration change source have been made, you can submit the change source for approval by setting the status to Ready for Approval. Once approved, the change source will be ready to be published. On publishing the change source, all the valid changes to the configuration baseline are updated in Maintenix. If some or all of the changes to the configuration baseline are invalid, you can rectify the error and publish the change source again.