Having recently celebrated its 20th Anniversary, COGD (Component Obsolescence Group Deutschland) and its association members have set the goal of identifying and analysing obsolescence risks for manufacturers of durable goods at an early stage and developing strategies to prevent obsolescence or at least minimise its negative consequences.
In safety-critical areas and industries such as military technology, aerospace, and rail, where systems usually have to remain in service for many decades, ensuring long-term system availability has been a major challenge for many years. NATO programs such as DMSMS (Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages) also pointed out early on the need for comprehensive obsolescence management in the military and public sectors. But it was not until 1997 that the first Component Obsolescence Group was founded in the UK on the initiative of two Bombardier employees, Detlef Blum and Richard Russel.
The idea of working together with component manufacturers, service providers, and other manufacturing companies threatened by obsolescence to find solutions for eliminating or reducing obsolescence risks proved so successful in practice that eight years later, a similar organization was established in Germany, initially as a subgroup of COG UK.
Launched in spring 2005 under the chairmanship of Mike Bews from the UK with 30 industrial, commercial, and service companies mainly from the electronics industry, the COGD has grown over the past two decades to become the most important national dialogue platform for active and strategic obsolescence management and the largest national chapter of the International Institute of Obsolescence Management (IIOM), the successor organization to COD UK.
Axel Wagner, honorary chairman of the COGD and full-time corporate lawyer for the EMEA region at Asteelflash Holding, said: “Of course, we are delighted about the continuous growth in COGD membership, but the sharp rise in membership is unfortunately also proof that materials, software, electronic components, and other replacement parts that have been discontinued or are suddenly no longer available on the free market for other reasons have become a serious problem for more and more industrial companies in recent years,” said Wagner.
The main victims are still equipment and plant manufacturers in sectors such as automation, automotive, rail, medical, military, and production technology, which sometimes have to provide spare parts for maintenance for decades, while the product life cycles of the parts, components, and software programs used are becoming shorter and shorter and other obsolescence risks such as geopolitical upheavals, natural disasters, stricter environmental regulations, and cyberattacks are also increasing.
“Product discontinuations have always existed. However, their number has exploded in the last two decades, especially for electronic components. One of the reasons for this are the extremely short life cycles of smartphones, smart watches, and other innovation drivers in the consumer sector. But in other areas that are important for security of supply, such as the resilience of international supply chains, the cost of taking precautions has also risen significantly. Keeping an eye on all latent risks in the supply chain and acting accordingly in a forward-looking manner is therefore often a major personnel and financial challenge, especially for medium-sized companies,” says Wagner.
For more information please visit www.cog-d.de
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