Keep Your Product Roadmap Intact
Component availability can break a product line. We assess lifecycle risk, propose alternates, and plan redesign paths so your roadmap stays intact. For products expected to ship for five, ten, or twenty years—industrial controllers, medical instruments, defense subsystems, transportation modules—a single end-of-life notice on a critical IC can force an unplanned redesign that consumes engineering bandwidth and delays commitments to your customers.
Our obsolescence management service provides structured, repeatable visibility into your BOM’s health and a concrete action plan for every at-risk component. We do not simply flag problems; we deliver prioritized recommendations with cost and schedule estimates so you can make informed decisions about last-time buys, alternate qualifications, and redesign timing.
BOM Health Scoring
We ingest your full bill of materials and assess every line item against current lifecycle data from manufacturer product change notifications, distributor databases (SiliconExpert, IHS Markit, Octopart), and direct manufacturer communications. Each component receives a health score based on its lifecycle status (active, NRND, last-time-buy, obsolete), the number of qualified sources, historical availability trends, current distributor stock depth, and its functional criticality to the design. The output is a ranked risk register that tells you exactly which components need attention now, which should be monitored, and which are stable. We present results in a format that engineering, procurement, and program management can each act on—a sortable spreadsheet with per-component scores, a summary dashboard with aggregate risk by subsystem, and a prioritized action list.
Alternates Strategy
When a component is at risk, the first question is whether a viable alternate exists. We conduct parametric searches across distributor and manufacturer databases to identify form-fit-function equivalents, pin-compatible alternatives from second sources, and functionally equivalent parts that may require minor schematic or layout modifications. Each candidate undergoes a documented parametric comparison covering electrical specifications (timing, drive strength, input thresholds, power consumption, operating temperature range), mechanical specifications (package dimensions, pin pitch, thermal pad), and environmental ratings. We classify each alternate by integration effort—drop-in replacement, minor BOM change, schematic modification required, or layout change required—so you can weigh the qualification cost against the risk of inaction. For critical components where no market alternate exists, we evaluate FPGA or ASIC consolidation paths, module-level substitutions, or architectural changes that eliminate the dependency entirely.
LTB Planning
A last-time-buy decision balances upfront procurement cost against projected demand, storage constraints, and the timeline for qualifying a replacement. We build LTB quantity models based on your production forecast, contractual delivery obligations, service and repair inventory requirements, and a safety margin for yield loss and demand variability. Storage considerations are factored in: moisture sensitivity level and dry-pack shelf life for semiconductors, solderability degradation timelines, and electrolytic capacitor aging. We then compare the total LTB cost (unit price at volume, warehousing, inspection upon use) against the cost and timeline of qualifying an alternate and executing a redesign now. The result is a clear recommendation—buy, redesign, or a hybrid approach where you secure a bridge quantity while the alternate qualification proceeds in parallel.
Redesign Scope Definition
When multiple components on a board are approaching end-of-life, or when available alternates require layout changes, a coordinated board revision is typically more cost-effective than serial component substitutions. We define the redesign scope by consolidating all pending component changes into a single revision, identifying opportunities to upgrade to current-generation parts with longer projected lifecycles, and introducing second-source options for every critical component to reduce future single-source exposure. The scope document includes a component change list with before/after part numbers, a schematic change summary, a layout impact assessment, a firmware change list (updated register maps, driver modifications), estimated engineering hours, and a preliminary schedule. This gives your program management team the information needed to budget and schedule the revision without ambiguity.