G D C A
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…
Letter from the CEO – What the Customer Wants is Trust
July 22, 2019
What’s the difference between a customer/supplier relationship and a partnership? In a word: Trust. Sometimes it seems as if no one trusts anyone anymore, and it’s easy to see why. Most people involved in the embedded computing supply chain have a story to tell about some supplier who’s acted in a win–lose way, where it…
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…
Counterfeits Take To the Road
January 16, 2015
Those who have been keeping up know the threat counterfeiting poses to the embedded world. To this point, most of our conversations regarding counterfeits have been focused on the damage they can do to projects, the costs incurred to replace them, and the threat they pose to the security of the supply chain. However, there…
Drinking From a Too-Short Straw: The Brutal Costs of Mismanaging Obsolescence
March 12, 2014
It can be easy for those of us in the embedded industry to think of obsolescence as predominantly an electronics or software issue and to imagine its scope as limited to small- or medium-scale consequences. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that obsolescence is a problem across many industries, and the consequences can be severe. The…
Sometimes Obsolescence is a Good Thing
April 9, 2013
Throughout my work with GDCA and all the issues around obsolescence, I have never come across someone who believes that obsolescence is something to be celebrated and welcomed. Everything associated with obsolescence is considered something to be avoided. The concept of planned obsolescence brings with it connotations of either designing a product to wear out…
SMTA & CALCE Symposium on Counterfeit Electronic Parts and Electronic Supply Chain
July 11, 2012
The recent reports concerning the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 continue to shake up things in the Defense industry. This past week was the SMTA & CALCE Symposium on Counterfeit Electronic Parts and Electronic Supply Chain and overall there was a strong showing across the board. Everyone brought great examples of how industry players are…
Does the prospect of overstocking kill your critical embedded systems?
April 11, 2012
The past few decades has seen exponential advancement in circuit board technologies and related industries. This unprecedented technological growth has devastated many older critical embedded applications and their manufacturers, with OEMs pushing for new technologies. In contrast, older technologies become harder to support. Pre-stocking has historically been used as the solution to the obsolescence problem,…
Vehicle Electronics and the U.S. Army’s New VICTORY Standard
April 4, 2012
Like the image to the side, modern combat vehicle electronics can resemble a bowl of hardware spaghetti. Different “bolt-on” devices and adaptors are stitched together by multiple suppliers who may be using different standards and interfaces. With barely enough room for a soldier wearing body armor, integration and interoperability have become key concerns. Working with…