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Unplanned downtime is a manufacturer’s worst nightmare. The nightmare worsens if goods on the idle production line are perishable food and beverages, as too much of a delay can lead to product losses. Manufacturing lines are complex systems made of thousands of parts, each doing their own important job. If one part fails, this has a cascading effect up and down the production line, to the extent that production may come to a complete halt. When this occurs, there are two options: perform a repair on the broken part, or replace or upgrade the entire system. While system upgrades have their own merits, they are expensive and entail large windows of undesirable, costly downtime while old systems are removed and new ones are installed and commissioned. The alternative approach is to replace the broken part, which sounds simple and should be much quicker than replacing the entire system. However, if the offending part turns out to be obsolete — that is, no longer manufactured by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) — then a quick task suddenly becomes more difficult. This is because quality obsolete parts are notoriously difficult to source so, if manufacturers are not prepared in advance, they may find themselves having to shut down production for much longer than initially anticipated. Furthermore, if corners are cut to find cheaper replacements, or if parts are bought simply because they were the easiest to find, manufacturers are liable to incur repeated downtime as lower-quality parts are likely to fail again, and quickly. As industrial systems typically have long lifespans, they are especially susceptible to broken parts, and are more likely to contain obsolete parts. That is why it’s important to have a comprehensive obsolescence plan in place. Obsolescence audit An effective obsolescence plan should involve a full systems audit, to […]