Legacy Management
Helping you keep your New Year’s resolution
March 8, 2021
I used to be a cigarette smoker. Each New Year I resolved to stop smoking, and I’d stash my “last” half-pack of cigarettes deep inside a dark drawer. Months later, when I felt I needed just one cigarette, I’d retrieve the pack and start smoking again. For a long time, I tried nicotine-replacement therapies: patches,…
How to Find Discontinued Embedded Boards
November 10, 2020
The inevitable has finally arrived. An embedded board in your application has been discontinued by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Your company needs a critical embedded board, and revenue depends on timely delivery. But the OEM cannot build additional boards for you and the franchised suppliers don’t have any inventory left. What can you do? Predictably,…
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that are generating little or no profit for the company because of production complications, small market share, and/or outdated function can harm an embedded computer manufacturer’s bottom line.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…
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…
Knowing the Difference Between a Legacy Equipment Manufacturer (LEM) vs. an OEM Saves You Time and Money
August 3, 2017
When you need an embedded board that is still in production, it is easy to call the OEM, order what you want, and receive delivery. Because everything needed to produce your product is still readily available, you don’t have to worry about issues like accessibility, documentation, or counterfeit parts. However, after the point when an…
Innovating Obsolescence: When the Supply Chain Is Around Your Throat
February 26, 2015
Obsolescence can pose a grave threat to individuals, economies, and nations. Security and defense receive a great deal of attention in our Critical Thoughts section, partly because they are domains in which obsolescence is highly visible and easily conceived. In fact, the defense industry has its own acronym, that specifically outlines the necessary steps to…
Building for VICTORY: The U.S. Army and the Vehicle Integration Network Initiative
October 20, 2014
It isn’t a high-profile battle, but those who know are aware that our armed forces are engaged in a perpetual war with an enemy that is, ultimately, unbeatable. That enemy is obsolescence. However, just because obsolescence is inevitable, it doesn’t mean there aren’t victories. Or one singular “VICTORY,” as the case may be.
SAE AeroTech 2013: Innovation and Total Life Cycle Support
October 9, 2013
The SAE 2013 AeroTech Congress and Exhibition in Montréal, Quebec, Canada, brought together an international community to discuss both design and total life-cycle sustainment. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) boards and components continue to bring technological achievements in the form of advanced flight systems, heads-up displays, sensors that track aircraft usage to identify the best time for…
Software Obsolescence: Why Modernization Doesn’t Necessarily Mean “Modern”
September 18, 2013
For players in the embedded industry it is easy to forget how large the problem of obsolescence can be, especially beyond the component level. Recently, I was talking to a software engineer who had spent a year doing software modernization, as a result of upgrading a flight navigational system from the original code to Linux.…
Golf: A Good Thing Never Truly Becomes Obsolete
September 4, 2013
Every year at National Instruments NI Week in Austin, TX the GDCA team gets to enjoy a wave of hot weather that is only overshadowed by a tide of hot technology innovation. NI Week does a wonderful job of providing a forum for education and inspiration. As one of the few conferences where GDCA has…