Peter Sandborn
CALCE EPSC
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Abstract:
As a result of the rapid growth of the electronics industry, many of the electronic parts in
products have a procurement life cycle that is significantly shorter than the life cycle of the
system they go into. A part becomes obsolete when it is no longer manufactured, either because
demand has dropped to low enough levels that manufacturers choose not to continue to make it,
or because the materials or technologies necessary to produce it are no longer available. The
military refers to this situation as Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages
(DMSMS). Avionics and military systems may encounter obsolescence before being fielded and
always experience obsolescence problems during their field life.
Today there are a growing number of methodologies, databases and tools that address status,
forecasting, risk, mitigation and management of electronic parts obsolescence. However, the
one common attribute of all the methodologies, databases and tools that are in use today, whether
reactive, proactive or strategic, is that they focus exclusively on the hardware life cycle. In most
complex systems, software life cycle costs (redesign, re-hosting and re-qualification) contribute
as much or more to the total life cycle cost as the hardware, and the hardware and software must
be concurrently sustained.
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