Rapid evolution of electronics technologies, the management process of identifying and maintaining qualified suppliers, and the replacement of obsolete COTS, parts poses a significant problem faced by all companies that do business in the commercial and military sectors.

An Industrial Alliance Board has been formed to collaborate on the critical issue facing today's electronic designers - parts obsolescence. The initial participants in this collaborative teaming effort include a portion of ACI’s Industry Advisory Board which includes a large percentage of Defense Contractors along with ACI participating as both a team member and facilitator. This is an industry driven initiative with industry investment and industry commitment to better serve the needs of new and legacy designs.

Alliance members have agreed to collaborate to identify part obsolescence issues, share non-proprietary solutions to part obsolescence issues, define part qualification requirements and arrive at a consensus process leading to the resolution of the part obsolescence problem for the mutual benefit of the collaboration partners.

The Industrial Alliance will ultimately provide significant benefits for the Navy and DoD. The problem in today’s commercial electronics market is that the military is experiencing an eroding market share in commercial electronics. As commercial electronics product life cycles continue to decrease, there will be an increase in obsolescence issues. The Industrial Alliance, through its sharing of parts level data, will help abate Navy program risks by providing notification of obsolescence issues while there is time available to implement low-cost and low-risk solutions. Overall, the Navy will see reduced program costs as Alliance members avoid duplicating efforts to resolve diminishing manufacturing source (DMS) issues pertaining to the same part. The Alliance will have the ability to measure real data as Navy programs move forward and report savings on a periodic basis.

A preliminary business case was conducted by ACI in support of the proposed collaborative effort and the result shows that a significant cost benefit would be realized by all partners. Some of the benefits that the collaborative members would share include:
Savings in time and effort based upon use of common part qualification information
Savings in time and effort by teaming on component qualification efforts
Increased awareness of specific concerns about components and vendors
An expected ROI of 1:1 (100%) within one year

By collecting information on obsolete part issues from each alliance member and then evaluating the data for common concerns or configuration item applications, a set of requirements can be established that are common among Alliance member businesses and, when satisfied, will lead to a mutually beneficial solution. By identifying those part obsolescence issues which are common among members, and then agreeing to collaboratively find a solution through the identification or qualification of suitable replacements, significant cost savings can be realized. The following scenarios are examples:

Scenario One- If an Alliance member identifies a component that they have a requirement to qualify, and another Alliance member has already conducted the qualification test for that particular component, then an immediate benefit is realized through the sharing of that information among the members. The table above illustrate examples of one member needing a COTS component qualified and another member having already qualified that component resulting in an immediate benefit to the membership.

Scenario Two- If more than one of the Alliance members requires component qualification information or additional reliability testing for a particular COTS component, then the teaming effort will reduce the qualification cost by eliminating redundant efforts to individually repeat the same test process. In this case significant benefits can be realized by qualifying a family of components.

The objective of this effort is to create a collective knowledge base of component obsolescence and qualification information and reliability data at a central location that facilitates easy access by members. Benefits include:

Cost-savings through elimination of redundant efforts
Reduced technical risk by using "tried and true" part selection and qualification methodology
Reduced schedule risk on development and production programs
Enhanced performance in the maintenance
A ROI of 1:1 (100%) within one year
Increased opportunities and reduced costs to perform planned technology insertions on new and existing programs
Reduced cycle time in the resolution of part obsolescence issues and in the selection of parts for new designs and design upgrades

The selected area of concentration is the issue of part obsolescence in new and legacy designs. Specifically, information from the following component management areas will be collected, evaluated and then shared amongst the team:

Qualification data - Goal is to establish a repository of test data resulting from qualification testing of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components supplied by non-Qualified Manufacturing Line (QML) vendors. Each Alliance member will populate this database with qualification test data pertaining to specific parts. Qualification testing of parts will then proceed under a process which has a collective set of requirements defined as common by the Alliance members, thereby eliminating redundancy in effort. The data will be obtained via an agreed-to test methodology template.

Obsolescence data - Goal is to identify and prioritize commonly used components that have obsolescence issues. Subsequently, this task calls for the identification of suitable replacements by sharing non-recurring re-design engineering information or part substitution data among members.

A feasibility survey of existing component databases was conducted to determine if any duplication of effort exists and also how the resources could compliment that of the Alliance teaming. Organizations such as DMEA, DMSMS, GIDEP, IAC, SPANS, and STACK each were not found to be a duplication of effort with what the Alliance is seeking to accomplish.

DMEA
The Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) was established by the Department of Defense to provide a broad spectrum of microelectronics services to the DoD. They are located in Sacramento, California and have approximately 3,500 employees.

Their capabilities include looking at specific obsolete components and developing die to reverse engineering solutions. For example, if they have a component with a specific I/O, they will design and build a replacement that has the same I/O.
They may indirectly have some qualification/reliability information, but they do not formally house these types of information as a service like that which ACI is providing in this effort.

DTC/DMSMS
The Diminishing Manufacturing Sources Technology Center (DMS/DTC) provides in-depth DMS management and solutions. This is a Navy center that provides DMS and Material Shortages (DMSMS) information. Jack McDermott of ARINC Incorporated is the Joint STARS USAF/DoD Teaming Co-chairman and states,

From a teaming perspective, DMSMS finds commonality among DoD platforms and then tries to find common solutions. 83% of problems are microelectronics issues.

The teaming efforts are focused on government, industry, and suppliers partnering to provide solutions to situations caused by diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages. The partnership consists of networking among the group to develop/identify common solutions.

GIDEP
The Defense Technical Information Center runs the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP). GIDEP is a repository of data and information across the DoD and industry.

GIDEP is a cooperative activity between government and industry participants seeking to reduce or eliminate expenditures of resources by sharing technical information essential during research, design, development, production, and operational phases of the life cycle of systems, facilities, and equipment. Since GIDEP's inception, participants have reported over $1 billion in prevention of unplanned expenditures.

DTIC/IAC/RAC
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) sponsors Information Analysis Centers (IACs) that support highly specialized technical areas. The Reliability Analysis Center (RAC) is run by the IIT Research Institute. They primarily collect, analyze, and store reliability data. This allows them to provide insight into potential reliability improvement areas.

They also maintain the Data Sharing Consortium that is an older style database that has component screening, qualification, test and field performance data that has been used primarily by commercial subcontractors.

SPANS
Supply Chain Practices for Affordable Navy Systems (SPANS) assists the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The SPANS approach is to integrate and optimize large supply chain issues relating to the building of naval vessels and equipment.

In general, SPANS seeks to improve supply chain practices for Navy systems by finding new, State-of-the-Art (SOA) practices and technologies and by conducting sufficient development work so that they can be piloted and deployed into a Navy weapon system.

Stack International
Stack International is a group of multinational, independent electronic equipment manufacturers who share experience, "know-how," and workload, and cooperate closely in pre-competitive areas with each other and their suppliers to reduce individual members' cost and risk of component ownership.

ACI shall facilitate the storage of, and access to, relevant information pertaining to the above two areas of concern. This task will be completed most effectively through the solicitation of the Alliance member requirements, and then by conducting a trade study to arrive at a database infrastructure that adequately addresses Alliance member needs. Once the database is established, then cost benefits can be realized via component data sharing.

If you would like additional information about the Industrial Alliance Board, please contact the EMPF Helpline at 610-362-1320.