Introduction

In today’s engineering landscape—where products are no longer mere mechanical assemblies but complex cyber-physical systems—the ability to maintain data integrity is the decisive factor between commercial success and catastrophic failure. Configuration Management (CM) is the systems engineering discipline that ensures a product’s physical and functional state remains consistent with its design requirements throughout the entire lifecycle.

For high-integrity sectors such as aerospace, automotive, and medical devices, CM is not simply an administrative process; it is a critical mechanism for risk and safety management. This guide breaks down the fundamentals of Configuration Management, its strategic importance within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), and how organizations can implement it to ensure end-to-end traceability.

The Strategic Imperative of Configuration Management

As product development becomes increasingly globalized and multidisciplinary, engineering teams face an unprecedented volume of change. Without a robust Configuration Management (CM) framework, organizations fall into what is known as configuration drift, where technical documentation, software, and physical components are no longer aligned.

Configuration Management acts as the single source of truth. It provides the infrastructure required to answer critical questions with surgical precision during an audit or a field failure: Which version of the requirements was used for this unit? Which changes were approved, and by whom? Is this software compatible with this hardware revision?

The Methodological Pillars of Configuration Management

To comply with internationally recognized standards of excellence such as EIA-649C, ISO 10007, or MIL-STD-973, the Configuration Management (CM) process must be structured around five fundamental activities that operate in close synergy:

1. Configuration Identification: Defining the System Structure

Configuration identification is the foundation of the entire CM process. It consists of selecting and defining Configuration Items (CIs)—the building blocks of the system that require individual control. These may include high-level requirements, CAD models, software modules, firmware versions, or maintenance manuals.

Key elements of this activity include:

• Product Breakdown Structure (PBS): A clearly defined hierarchical structure that reflects the system architecture and the relationships between configuration items.
• Naming and Versioning Rules: Strict conventions are established to uniquely identify each CI, ensuring that every revision is traceable, distinguishable, and reproducible throughout the product lifecycle.

2. Configuration Control: Governing Change

This function ensures that every modification is evaluated in a systematic and controlled manner. The objective is not to prevent change, but to manage it responsibly. The configuration control process typically includes:

• Change Request (CR): The formal documentation of the need for change, whether driven by defect correction, functional enhancement, or regulatory compliance.
• Impact Analysis: A technical and economic assessment that evaluates how a change to a CI affects the rest of the system across the Digital Thread.
• Change Control Board (CCB): A multidisciplinary committee that reviews the impact analysis and approves, rejects, or defers changes based on objective data and risk considerations.

3. Configuration Status Accounting (CSA): The Memory of the Program

Configuration Status Accounting serves as the historical record of the product configuration. It provides real-time visibility into the status of each CI and the progress of all approved changes.

CSA is critical for reproducibility—the ability to reconstruct any previous version of the product for forensic analysis, regulatory audits, or long-term maintenance and support.

4. Configuration Verification and Audit: Validating Reality

Configuration audits ensure that CM is not merely a theoretical process, but an accurate reflection of the real, built system.

Two primary audit types are involved:

• Functional Configuration Audit (FCA): Verifies, through testing and verification activities, that the system meets the functional and performance requirements defined in its approved specifications.
• Physical Configuration Audit (PCA): Confirms that the as-built product matches the as-designed and as-documented configuration, ensuring there are no discrepancies between manufacturing output and engineering documentation.

Baselines: Synchronizing the Product Lifecycle

In product development, Configuration Management uses baselines to “freeze” the state of the configuration at key milestones. This allows engineering teams to proceed with confidence, knowing that the design’s foundations will not change unexpectedly.

• Functional Baseline: Established after the System Requirements Review (SRR), it represents the formal agreement on what the system is required to do.
• Allocated Baseline: Defined after the Preliminary Design Review (PDR), it allocates system functions and requirements to the corresponding hardware and software subsystems.
• Product Baseline: The final configuration approved for production after the Critical Design Review (CDR). Any subsequent change is managed as a post-production modification under formal configuration control.

Hardware–Software Synchronization: The Greatest Challenge of Modern Configuration Management

One of the most significant friction points in modern Configuration Management is the mismatch between hardware and software lifecycles. While hardware follows long, costly development and release cycles, software evolves continuously through frequent updates and CI/CD pipelines.

A world-class CM system within a PLM environment must enforce a compatibility matrix, ensuring that Firmware v3.4 is deployed only on units equipped with a compatible processor revision. Without this level of synchronization, the risk of systemic failures in medical devices or automotive systems increases exponentially.

How Visure Solutions Elevates Configuration Management

Many PLM tools focus exclusively on the physical structure of the product (BoM), leaving requirements configuration and compliance tracking vulnerable in spreadsheets. Visure Requirements ALM Platform embeds Configuration Management directly into the engineering workflow, closing this critical gap.

Automated Baseline Management:
Create baselines containing thousands of requirements with a single click and compare versions to identify subtle but critical changes.

Bidirectional Impact Analysis:
Visually trace how a configuration change propagates from the originating requirement through design elements, test cases, and risk controls.

Electronic Approval Workflows:
Comply with regulations such as FDA 21 CFR Part 11 through digital signatures and formally governed review and approval processes within the platform.

Digital Continuity (Digital Thread):
Through OSLC integration, Visure synchronizes requirements configuration with PLM and design tools, eliminating information silos and ensuring a single source of truth.

Conclusion

Configuration Management is not a constraint on creativity; it is the framework that enables safe and scalable innovation. In a market that demands increasingly intelligent and customized products, the ability to master configuration is what separates industry leaders from organizations struggling with delays and quality failures.

By adopting rigorous CM processes and leveraging tools such as Visure, organizations ensure that their single source of truth remains accurate, auditable, and resilient throughout the entire product lifecycle.

Check out the 14-day free trial at Visure and experience how AI-driven change control can help you manage changes faster, safer, and with full audit readiness.