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I've never come across ECOs in over 15 years as a writer in a variety of
industries - perhaps it's a US thing? There have been two general means of
change I've come across (slight variations from company to company):
Change Request Form (CRF) - somebody has been reading the lit and found
something they think is wrong, unclear etc. A CRF is raised indicating
requested change (this may be change sentence XXX on p45 to YYY etc.),
it is reviewed (is it a valid change) and, depending on severity,
implemented immediately or added to list of changes for next release.
General doc review. Here changes are either marked up in the manual
(most common) or a separate list of required changes is provided (how
these are implemented is left to the author). Depending on reviewer this
may be rewrite sentence XXX as it is unclear to a more general Step 5 is
wrong, check and change!!
In both cases there is a form of "before and after" but nothing as formal
as an ECO. People aren't generally bothered what it was before ai any
changes must be approved before release. Also old versions of lit are kept
archived so it's easy to check if required.
