The Challenge of Obsolescence

Component obsolescence is something that is an on-going struggle for many supply chain managers.  When it comes to supply chain management, there are so many issues that can throw a company for a huge loop.  It can be something as simple as a duplicated spreadsheet, or just a simple slip with miscommunication that leads to the ultimate headache.  Let’s take a bill of materials (BOM) for example.  Managing the Bill of Materials is a vital part of product design and development.  The creation of a BOM is a fundamental part of product development, but managing it comes with a whole other set of problems:

• Each year hundreds of thousands of products transition to obsolescence
• Almost 50% of those products transition to obsolescence without a notification from the manufacturer to the customer
• There are constraints on components and substitutions based on the original board design, customer requirements (e.g., cost, time, functional, environmental requirements)

As a result of the above, obsolescence or end of life (EOL) component challenges can prove to be critical events in your supply chain quest for optimization. Big data is a saving grace sometimes when it comes to these issues.  Utilizing big data to source that part with a PCN, or to find a viable replacement can be of huge help.  There are many places and search engines out there that can aid in finding what you need.  Partstat.com is one of those places that offer such big data to help contractors and companies everywhere.  Partstat utilizes over 8 billion rows of historical data to help connect buyers and sellers in the right place at the right time.  Partstat also powers a service called BOM Monitoring that will manage a BOM for any company.  BOM monitoring delivers the following benefits:

• A dedicated BOM Product Specialist
• BOM normalizing
• Initial scrubbing of BOM for obsolescence
• PCN alerts
• Automated component analysis
• Part activity alerts
• Data sheets
• Rapid RFQ
• Access to historical pricing, lead times and inventory levels

It’s probably worth your time to at least take a peek at it, and it’s free for the first 14 days.

In conclusion, Obsolescence is going to be a fact of life for anyone in the supply chain industry.  Your BOM will have changes, but it will be how you plan for those changes that will determine your effectiveness and stress level when managing these inevitable events.

Questions – What has been your biggest challenge in supply chain?  What has worked for you when confronted with obsolescence?