The objective of this research is to apply Knowledge Discovery in Databases to derive patterns in Engineering Change Requests. Our work describes a use case with the claim to improve Product Development Processes. The approach was accomplished by maintaining a business understanding in the context of the automotive industry. To gain a better sense of the domain we conducted Interviews to be able to select a relevant test data set. We modelled a Text Mining process to analyse whole set of records. The results show that requests have similarities in the content, e. g. cause of the Engineering Change. These similarities can be used as a source to develop further assistance for change request applicants. To reach this goal a Text Mining process can now be applied on a data set of an automobile manufacturer containing Engineering Change Requests of last ten years.
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