Manufacturing
Planning for Legacy Sustainment Isn’t Optional — It’s a Business Decision You’re Already Making
February 3, 2026
The Cost of Waiting: Why Legacy Failures Are Always More Expensive Later Legacy systems rarely fail all at once. They fail quietly—and expensively. A component reaches end-of-life. A supplier exits the market. Test capability erodes as documentation ages and people move on. None of it feels urgent in isolation. But together, these small degradations create something far…
Legacy Sustainment Magic: When OEMs and LEMs Come Together (Sea Sparrow Case Study) – GDCA
February 26, 2025
GDCA is in the business of helping defense programs who can no longer get support for obsolete electronics circuit cards, like computer boards, graphics cards, power supply controllers and many more specialized electronics assemblies that make defense systems “smart”. These circuit card assemblies (CCAs) are often commercial products that have been discontinued by their OEMs.…
Legacy Engineering: Balancing Innovation with Tradition
October 1, 2024
Legacy electronic systems result from technology’s swift evolution, a rapid pace of growth and innovation that, while widely celebrated, leaves many embedded systems incompatible and unable to easily and affordably upgrade in its wake. What is Legacy Engineering? The goal of engineering as a general field has always been to solve technical problems, increase efficiency…
Just because you have the TDP doesn’t mean you can build the board
February 20, 2024
Recently, one of the ways in which we’ve seen end-use customers try to combat electronics obsolescence is by getting the technical data (TDP) of the required circuit board from the OEM. For the last few years, there has been a growing conviction that having the TDP is the answer to the challenge of assuring support…
Tania’s Teachable Discussions
December 26, 2023
A new video series for OEMs on the EOL cycle Legacy Expert Tania Scroggie of GDCA, Inc. presents a new series of short videos about end-of-life products and the strategies available to OEMs when their customers want support for an embedded system that is obsolete. Tania is GDCA’s OEM Relationships Director, responsible for coordinating between…
How to Source Discontinued Embedded Boards
September 1, 2023
Finding embedded circuit boards after the OEM has discontinued them can be challenging, especially if the board is several years old. However, there are several comprehensive steps that you can take to source the discontinued boards that could save you time and money. Specific sources have risks, so always consider your applications’ security, safety, and…
You Get What You Pay For
August 2, 2023
The value of working with an ITAR compliant company ITAR or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, is a vital set of regulations that control the export and import of defense and space-related articles, services, and technical data on the United States Munitions List (USML). Every company that handles, manufactures, designs, sells, or distributes items…
The Human Factor: When losing older workers leads to obsolescence
April 10, 2023
Ask anyone who drives an older car. As the system ages, it develops its own quirks. You have to jiggle the shifter in park to get the keys out of the ignition. You have to pump the gas twice before it starts up on a cold day. The AC has to be turned off…
When ‘Just-in-Time’ Is Just Too Late: A New Approach to Managing Production
October 21, 2022
Until the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, just-in-time (JIT) inventory management strategy was considered to be among the most reliable business models for manufacturing everything from cell phones to satellites. JIT was used to minimize component inventories and increase efficiency throughout the production process. For active products, that meant required materials arrived when they…
5 Sustainment Questions Every Program Must Ask Itself
June 3, 2022
DoD Programs routinely face a backlog of open cases for parts that are unprocurable owing to obsolescence or DMSMS. Problematic parts range from bolts and valves to complex computer electronics. When these cases are not quickly resolved, the fallout can be significant, resulting in undermined warfighters’ missions and jeopardized lives. In this critical thought, we’ll…