Product Lifecycle Management
Our products are developed for long-term availability and manufactured in consistently high quality for many years. New customer requirements, changes in the regulatory framework or discontinued components, however, make it necessary to redesign existing products or develop successor products.
On this page we will give you a short introduction to our product lifecycle management and the associated risk management.
Not recommended for new designs
The product is still available and fully supported. However, it is not recommended for new designs (e.g. due to discontinued components or because a successor product is available). Please contact our sales team for information about availability and substitute products.
Ensuring long product availability as goal
The availability of products depends on a large number of factors, many of which can already be taken into account during development to minimize risk. Further actions help to ensure long-term availability in the course of the product life cycle. Some of these actions, which are implemented at esd, are listed here as examples.
- Already during the development of the products, measures are taken to ensure optimum long-term product availability.
- In the development state we consider the manufacturer’s information concerning long-term availability of their components. (e.g. Intel Embedded Product Roadmap)
- If components have the same technical suitability, components with assured long-term availability will be preferably used.
- During the serial production (from state VERF) incoming Product Change Notifications (PCN) are also evaluated concerning their effects on availability.
Potential risks to product availability in ongoing volume production
Even though a product has been reviewed during development, components may be discontinued by the manufacturer or the specifications may be changed before the planned end of the product's service life has been reached. In addition, many other influencing factors can lead to an impairment of the availability of products.
- End-of life notification of a component (EOL) by the manufacturer, that leads to a change of the product
- Changes of a component specification by the manufacturer, so that the component can no longer be used in the product
- Extension of the delivery period, so that the product can not be produced in the required quantities
- Changes of specification or legal requirements, which require a redesign
Active management of Product Change Notifications (PCN)
In order to minimize risk, esd has established an active management of product change notifications, which includes the following.
- Request towards the distributors, to send PCNs to esd
- Request towards the EMS service providers, to send PCNs concerning the provided components to esd
- Review of the PCNs in the purchasing department, assignment to the esd products and notification of the development department
- Evaluation of the PCNs by the product developer
- Measures for the assurance of the future availability
Measures to ensure the long-term availability of products
Arrangement of an Extended Availability Check
In addition to the regular measures of the PCN management further and regularly recurring checks of the availability of the product components can be arranged. This can be agreed with the customer for standard products as well as for customer-specific products. At the extended availability check, with every new production order the long-term availability of all parts of the bill of materials (BOM) can be checked and evaluated. Thus, measures to ensure the product availability can be taken early.