Obsolescence groups tackles long term supply and conflict minerals challenges
The UK COG is the focus in Europe for issues around the supply of long term platforms for markets such as transportation, nuclear, military and aerospace where designs can last 30 to 40 years.
Chairman Nigel Wallis from Ultra Controls is handing over at the COG conference from the 25th June in York, UK. A key issue is getting designers to work more closely with their procurement departments on the sourcing of COTS parts and systems, he says.
“From my perspective the most important thing is the supply chain issue,” said Wallis. “Historically COG has been about technology issues but now it’s about the supply chain and the engineering and procurement issues are inextricably linked up.”
“The will and the intent is always there but there are mechanisms that stop that happening,” he said. “There’s different agendas – engineering can focus on MTBF and reliability for example, while our agenda as procurement is non-standard parts and long term supply, so hopefully between us we will get stuff that’s good for 25 years, he said. “In my situation we have broken down the barriers and the reasons for it. There’s always a technical reason for the part that’s designed in, but there might also be supply chain issues that we can address – we don’t have to replace the part but we can mitigate the risk.”
“The important thing to note is there is still a lot of technical content in the design but there are always gaps in the supply chain. There’s often a replacement device but when there isn’t and you have to go through a re-design and re-qualification, that has to be avoided at all costs.”
Single source items are an issue if people get bought out or go bust and you have to look for other parts, he says. “And there are some weird and wacky stuff that you can’t get re-manufactured,” he said. “If you can mitigate it at the front end, best practice is to tackle this at the front end.”
There are also problems with manufacturers changing the die, which they can do but this can mean the part is still current but doesn’t work in the design.
“One of the problems we have that’s recurring is the use of commercial parts,” said Wallis. “The MIL parts are made to a certain spec, where a commercial manufacturer doesn’t need to tell you if they change the process. The commercial parts are more commonly used and COTS and what that means – it means different things to different people – for some its parts, for others it’s a whole systems and there is no one definition.”
“The REACH regulations are starting to come in, restrictions on substances in devices, to safeguard health and safety and that could cause some problems,” he said. “We are about materials as well as components so there are issues with conflict materials such as tantalum and coltan – it is beginning to become a problem for people – it’s not regulated now, but it will be. I think all we can do is highlight the issues. We can’t change the world but it’s about raising the awareness"
The group has a German chapter with COG Deutschland looking at automotive issues and it is looking at at setting up a Spanish chapter, says Wallis.
www.cog.co.uk
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