COTS

7 Perspectives about Legacy Engineering

Once component EOL notices have been issued and COTS embedded boards are discontinued, the processes for keeping your embedded systems vital drastically changes and so must your overall thinking about them. When the supply chain is active, acquiring the boards and components you need requires simply placing an order. Extending or even reviving a product…

The Value of Developing Second Source for Obsolete Boards

I’ve recently come back from an exciting two-week road trip, and I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the impact obsolete electronics have on their enterprises. The people I met were knowledgeable, passionate, and in many cases struggling to find a solution or make a business case to remedy their particular obsolescence problem.…

COTS: A “reactive” good idea

Following a directive from the US military in the early 1990s, the defense industry made a shift from using custom embedded electronic components made to military specifications to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components.  Since the overall share of the DoD as a consumer was expected to shrink over time, this move to reduce costs took a practical…

Condition-Based-Maintenance (CBM): The leading edge of proactive sustainment

Defense Maintenance & Sustainment Summit (DMS 2012) February 27-29, 2012, | La Jolla, California It was my first time attending WBR’s Defense Maintenance & Sustainment Summit, and it was fascinating to hear about best practices from the many government attendees and their commercial partners. The focus was CBM (condition-based-maintenance), a sustainment approach that involves installing…