Classification of Change-Related Ilities Based on a Literature Review of Engineering Changes

As technical systems become more interconnected and the speed of innovation increases, the importance of engineering changes is on the rise. Several research works addressed how to increase the easiness of change in technical systems, but until a common terminology is established, ambiguity prevents an effective communication of knowledge and an adequate comparison of best practices. This paper reviews the literature on change-related lifecycle properties (the “Ilities”) and proposes a unified vocabulary. Nine frameworks about change-related Ilities are analyzed in details; then, the main properties of engineering changes are highlighted. Finally, the article rearranges the content of the nine frameworks according to the engineering change properties and presents a method to identify unambiguously change lifecycle properties based on a distinction between key change features and secondary change features.