Improving Product Reliability and Software Quality, 2nd Edition

25End‐of‐Life Phase

25.1 Managing Obsolescence

Eventually, all products reach the end of life when they can no longer serve the needs of the customer both in overall performance and capability. There are many reasons that products suffer in performance. Sometimes the product eventually wears out from use; but more than likely it is because other products can outperform the older units.

Computers that were state of the art two to three years ago are being replaced with computers with significant improvements, allowing the user greater productivity. In this case, the older computer may be performing to the original specifications, but if the market needs higher capabilities, the older unit is rendered obsolete. Perfectly good audio devices and cell phones are continuously being replaced with newer devices that, in one way or another, outperform their predecessors. This is performance obsolescence through new improvements. The time between new product release and obsolescence is getting shorter and shorter. The time to make profits for a given product is getting is narrower and narrower. So early market entry and high reliability are very important for profit capture.

Some products are expected to have a long product use life (e.g. automobiles, CAT scanners, consumer electronics). Reliability concerns can surface if the product starts to wear out before its end of life. When this happens, expect more frequent component failures. There may even come a time when the product cannot ...