Obsolescence management
Description→
Description
Obsolescence constitutes an ever growing risk for many industrial supply chains. It can result from rapid technological developments, supply sources interruptions or even from commercially driven planned-obsolescence strategies. Some products are particularly exposed to this risk, especially in the electronics and computer industries. In the past years everyone could witness the rapid disappearance of data storage devices such as audio cassettes or video tapes, the phasing-out of many computer programming languages and operating systems or the replacement of traditional lamps by energy saving versions.
In sectors where equipments are designed for long life cycles, obsolescence has become a major disrupting factor, often leading to financial and operational losses, project and maintenance delays or in a more insidious way to risks of deteriorated quality of spare parts.
As a consequence, specific obsolescence requirements have been included in sector quality standards such as IRIS for Railway and EN 9100 for Aeronautics.
One way to deal with obsolescence involves corrective actions to compensate situations in which obsolescence actually materialised. However, a preventive approach to obsolescence turns out to be more financially favourable and at the same time certainly more efficient to avoid negative impacts on customers particularly when it comes to operational unavailability of rolling stock or other equipements.
Valunorm approach and services
- Implementation of obsolescence management processes, by taking into account various factors relating to equipment, personnel, management, documentation, etc.
- Risk assessment for the specific cases faced by the customer
- Selection of the best obsolescence-risk reduction countermeasures: safety stocks, re-engineering, alternative supply sources, etc.
- Writing of obsolescence buying specifications
- Design of obsolescence surveillance
- Organisation of risk monitoring activities within the whole supply chain
- Distribution of obsolescence related tasks at all levels of the supply chain : respective roles and responsibilities of Operators, Manufacturers and suppliers
- Clarification of the relationship between Obsolescence and the other main management processes: configuration, documentation, training, procurement, etc.
- Implementation of the obsolescence relevant articles from quality standards such as ISO 9001, IRIS, EN 9100