This is an age-old issue in CAD. In recent years, non-engineering changes at higher level assemblies were incorporated in the release cycles for simple updates to make the changes needed to do what you are running into. This is very similar to releasing a component and when you do the drawing, you need to move references to create good associative drawings. These are not engineering revisions but they are revised in the strictest sense to the PDM.
It is truly a matter of how you have your policies set up. If you have a check function in your organization, -any- change probably needs to be reviewed. But once the process is complete, whatever that may be, -someone- should be able to make the conclusion that the file has not changed in an engineering sense.
I have lived this nightmare through countless mis-management opportunities. In the end, most are very manual managed by some IT person since they couldn't put this allowance in a PDM policy without it being abused at some level.
In the worst case, some companies use "bin compatible" interchangeability rules. Simply moving mounting holes constitutes a part number change, and this would force higher level assemblies to be updated through the engineering change order rules. If new holes were added to the part, this would be bin compatible. as going forward, these parts would have both groups of holes. This process still boggles my mind, but it is a system that has taken hold in industry. But you know just how difficult it is to constantly be making part number changes if your file names are part number driven. In Creo, this requires very careful implementation if you don't want to redo -everything- you touch at next level assemblies. I have seen the results of poor model management after a year or two of ECO activity where drawings would come up completely in shambles from ECOs that did not follow through on updates to the highest level. This was with PDM and an group managing ECOs no less.
