Electronic components Life Cycle management(part 6):

Methods to manage sourcing issues of obsolete components

Systems, devices, and components gets fast obsolete in the fast changing technology world. The life of the products and the components vary due to various economical and technological reasons.

Finding an obsolete part is near impossible task. The failure in finding parts delays the whole project. The discontinuation of manufacturing by the supplier for an important part causes significant loss to the user. This drives the concept of storing, updating and reviewing the component information especially about the life-cycle data, availability, alternates, etc., periodically. The management of components when they are active is far easier, cost-effective and simpler than they are obsolete and hard to locate. Creating an alternate plan for obsolete components and implementing the plan is many times as good as re-designing the product again with new components.

The products or the components are considered to be obsolete if they are no longer available from the original component or product manufacturer (OCM or OEM). The term obsolete means getting disappeared or vanished. The OCMs releases the product discontinuance notices (PDNs) or end-of-life (EOL) notices or last-time-buy (LTB) notices stating their last time buy options and last time availability dates. The components enter the obs...