Life Cycle 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,…
What is a Second Source of Supply?
October 12, 2020
Working with a second source of supply is a favorable alternative in obsolescence management. Sanctioned by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with original IP, a second source of supply rebuilds and maintains the supply chain of prime contractors, supporting primes and their customers. New sources of supply can predict and resolve obsolescence issues before they…
Legacy Manufacturing: Where Discontinued Embedded Boards Still Have a Future
August 7, 2018
With technology advancing at lightning speed and embedded boards being EOL’d sometimes even while a system is still in the design phase, new methods and ways of thinking must be introduced to meet the needs of programs and applications with long lifecycles. When embedded boards become obsolete, a Legacy Manufacturer can step in and provide…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Are PCs becoming obsolete?
August 7, 2013
Recently on NPR I heard that PC sales have hit a record low. With the growing touch screen market, even Windows is focusing their innovation and development on the tablet market and with operating systems like the recently updated Windows 8. Bringing together the best of both worlds is the “convertible” market, where your “laptop”…