The change process is really when someone identifies an issue that may need to be addressed. In agreement to the post above, there is a cost factor added to any kind of ECO. Therefore, an ECO is reviewed very carefully before signing off since there are many factors attached to it. I worked in the software development side and our client need some changes to the existing program that they had since the client acquired few new companies. We had several meetings before an ECO was issued since as a contractor it would have been an added cost to the company apart from the contract that was in place. ECO went through many approval from top-down when it finally got to us for implementing the change. We did make the changes to the code but it was a lengthy process as it had to go through development,testing, QC, and then deployed it for production.