How to keep your company in the game: Obsolescence management

Have you ever been told that an asset, like your gas boiler, is irreparable? Or that your travel plans are disrupted because servicemen can’t repair your train, aircraft or ship without the right missing spares or discontinued parts?

The pace of technological change today can mean that items become obsolete very quickly, and this process could happen at any stage of their life cycle.

At an individual level, this rapid change can be frustrating and replacing items can be expensive. At an organizational level, investments in new technology may prove cost ineffective within just a few years, and the costs to replace at scale can have severe cost implications.

What is obsolescence management?

Obsolescence management is the process of reducing the likelihood of an item or service becoming obsolete during its expected useful life, and reducing the severity of the impact if it does.

The items included under the definition include:

• physical assets, such as products and equipment;
• consumables and spares, such as ink cartridges, disc drives, computers and batteries;
• materials, such as fluids and composites;
• software, such as operating environments and firmware;
• systems, such as information systems and classification systems; and
• services, such as maintenance and communication.

Items that depend on the original item are also affected and must be considered part of the process. These are called sub-items.

Obsolescence is likely to be inevitable, but it's uncertain when it will occur or what its impact will be. Potential impacts can be categorized as:

• financial: organizations can incur significant costs due to the need to change supply chains, design or test new items, change item processes, or pay more as supply become scarce;
• operational impacts: if an item becomes unavailable, the user can no longer derive benefit from it or the items which depend upon it; 
• compliance impacts: organizations can find their ability to comply with regulations is affected by the unavailability of an item; and/or
• reputational impacts: organizations' ability to function or provide services can be affected, causing damage to the name or brand.

It is therefore important to take a risk-management view and manage the issue as an integral part of an item's life cycle: concept, development, realization (production), utilization (in-service support), enhancement (return to design upgrade), retirement and then back to concept.

Planning for obsolescence management with a new BS standard

So once we know what, how do we proceed to start planning out the necessary steps?

A British standard, BS EN IEC 62402:2019, Obsolescence management, sets out how to manage the obsolescence of any type of item, whether hardware, software, services or systems.

BS EN IEC 62402:2019 revises and replaces BS EN 62402:2007, Obsolescence Management – Application guide, and is for use by any organization, whether a manufacturer or a supplier.

It is now written as a standard with requirements rather than a guide, with guidance provided in informative annexes.  As a standard, this makes it possible to create a Conformity Assessment Process scheme for manufacturers to receive an obsolescence management assessed certificate. This is useful in high-performance industries, such as transport, nuclear, subsea, aerospace, and defence.

The standard covers the following areas:

• establishing an obsolescence management policy;
• establishing an infrastructure and an organization;
• developing an obsolescence management plan (OMP);
• developing strategies to minimize obsolescence during design;
• determining obsolescence risks and management approach;
• selecting obsolescence resolution and implementation; and
• measuring and improving the performance of the outcomes of the obsolescence management activities.

General principles on all the above points are contained in the standard, with further guidance on implementation in the annexes.

Obsolescence Management may be implemented as part of a dependability management process as outlined in BS EN 60300-1:2014 too.

Buy BS EN IEC 62402:2019 from the BSI shop: https://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail?pid=000000000030353267