Proactive Obsolescence Management
How to Effectively Prune Your Embedded Product Portfolio
July 8, 2020
In embedded computing, product pruning is the selective removal of certain products that no longer contribute to the health and growth of a company. Product families that are generating little or no profit for the company because of production complications, small market share, and/or outdated function can harm an embedded computer manufacturer’s bottom line. The…
5 Actions Teams Must Implement Into Their COVID Response Right Now
May 12, 2020
COVID-19 has changed the industry landscape in ways we are still trying to understand, and companies must respond—or be left in the dust. Although change is never easy, often the hardest part is deciding to reevaluate what we think we know. The alternative is to wait out the pandemic health crisis and hope that things…
True Cost – An Introduction to Lifecycle Optimization
October 25, 2019
For embedded board OEMs, Lifecycle Optimization and your electronics product portfolio are an important part of profit and loss considerations when determining your business objectives. Aging products’ impact on ROI is regularly overlooked. Component obsolescence, manufacturing bottlenecks and increasing demands on operational resources create gaps that drag down new product introduction and can considerably slow…
Why We Do It—GDCA’s Values and Legacy Embedded Systems
June 27, 2019
When it comes to proactive obsolescence management, no company is more trusted than GDCA in maintaining legacy embedded systems. Our core values combined with our commitment to our employees, our original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, and their customers create an environment of mutual trust for everyone. We have learned that the best way to keep…
How do you fulfill long-term demand for a system when you don’t have a long-term support contract?
May 15, 2019
Often, having a maintenance contract misleads Application OEMs and Prime Contractors into a false sense of long-term protection. When Primes are not privy to an accurate assessment of a system’s life cycle, gaps between the end of a contract and the continuing need for parts creates production and sustainment vulnerability. Reacting to these vulnerabilities adds…
The gap between EOL and your needs—why PLM doesn’t always work
March 22, 2019
Reassessing your company’s approach to legacy sustainment is a critical step in minimizing stress and maximizing profits. Since the early 1950s, product life-cycle management (PLM) has been the commercial best practice for managing value and lifetime profitability of products and systems. However, as technology has advanced exponentially, so have the needs of managing products with…
5 Common Miscalculations OEMs Make That Impede Effective Proactive Obsolescence Management
February 28, 2019
…and What You Can Do Embedded and Application OEMs both face issues with their customers when product life cycles are longer than originally anticipated. Thinking critically about servicing systems past component EOL notices is vital for effective forecasting and maintenance, not only for end users but for manufacturers as well. Paying attention to the following…
What is PLM+™ ?
August 17, 2018
PLM+ is GDCA’s targeted approach to legacy sustainment, developed over decades by working closely with board and application OEMs. The process offers a new organizational structure to legacy sustainment, a time-tested way of being prepared. Traditional PLM (product lifecycle management) doesn’t address the intricacies of indefinitely sustaining legacy equipment after EOL. Traditional PLM leaves out…