Obsolescence management
According to DIN 62402:2007: "Obsolescence is unavoidable and cannot be prevented. Forward-looking and careful planning can minimise its repercussions and potentially high costs, however."
Further: "Obsolescence management is indispensable for achieving optimum cost-effectiveness throughout a product's entire lifecycle."
The term "obsolescence" describes the situation where a part or entire assembly (due to this one part) is no longer available.
There are a great many reasons for obsolescence:
- Technical progress
- Original manufacturer exits the market
- Economic reasons
- Poorly-documented modules
- Developers leave the company
- Issue in order relationships (dependencies)
The phenomenon of obsolescence first occurred in the context of electronics for defence products. Looking to the future, obsolescence will affect all of the sectors in the capital goods industry due to the rapidly increasing volume of innovations plus electronification.