On the use of functions, behaviour and structural relations as cues for engineering change prediction

Unforeseen side effects of engineering changes can affect other parts of a product, which are expected to remain relatively unchanged. As a result, known component relations are used as cues for assessing probable change propagation paths. In this paper, we assess the use of functions, behaviour and structural relations as cues for predicting engineering change propagation. It was observed from the analysis that estimates of possible propagation paths varied according to the type of the query as well as the type of cue used support prediction. The result indicates that in order to have credible estimates of change propagation paths, it is important that all three product-relations are considered when analysing change instances.