Operating legacy technology beyond end of life (EOL) is a common choice for manufacturers; but selecting which technology continues to operate should be a risk-based calculation. With a clear view of the technology lifecycle and upcoming business challenges, you can create the quantitative and qualitative connections necessary to show ROI based upon reduced losses. With this in mind, obsolescence mitigation plans should address four primary areas of risk:
Let’s explore each of these areas in more detail.
Many manufacturers are currently operating PLCs and VFDs that are more than 20 years old. While the lifespan of these rugged hardware components seems infinite, they will eventually reach EOL and break down with increasing frequency. When these components are this old, serviceability is likely already a challenge and replacement parts are probably becoming increasingly limited and expensive.
While many manufacturers will say they already perform preventative maintenance and regularly save old hardware to use as spare parts to repair other obsolete components in the plant, these tasks are still reactive and have time, space, resource, and budget constraints. Instead, outsourcing obsolescence mitigation projects to a third party can help free up internal resources to prioritize additional predictive and preventative maintenance activities and further reduce losses across the manufacturing floor.
Surprisingly, eBay has become a frequent source for industrial automation spare parts for many manufacturers these days. We’ve seen maintenance technicians who have been desperate enough to put production at risk by using eBay to purchase obsolete hardware for replacement or spare parts. And if the risk of critical parts availability and reliability from eBay was not daunting enough, consider the effort and expense required to support, modify, and debug obsolete automation components and software. This is challenging because with obsolete hardware, you are operating on borrowed time and consuming internal resources that should be focused on more valuable predictive/preventative maintenance activities. Again, if in-house resources are thin, outsourcing to a third party is a worthwhile investment.
New machines can provide everything you need in terms of performance, but the price can be considerable. The good news is that old machines aren’t necessarily bad machines. Sometimes, replacing components and improving the programming can make old machines look, feel, and perform like new ones, but for a fraction of the cost. For example, with safety and motion technology upgrades, many low-speed, discrete, or cyclical machines can be converted from standard motors and pneumatic controls to servo-based controls providing increased performance and safety without a complete redesign of the unit operation.
But when the business requires a step change in the unit’s performance and the cost of upgrading the machine exceeds 60 percent of a new unit’s cost, your team should perform a best value analysis to determine if an upgrade is the right approach. In my experience as a senior controls engineer designing, installing, and commissioning manufacturing lines and equipment for more than a decade, most clients would benefit from a third-party engineering resource helping develop the best value approach to evaluate an equipment upgrade versus replacement options.
I recently reprogrammed an old machine for a major personal health product manufacturer’s distribution center. The machine modifications and upgrades ran into the millions, but it was half the cost of new machines. Despite the differences in cost, we found that the performance, safety, and usability with the upgraded old machines would be equal to or better than a new machine.
The client had everything to gain if the upgrade project was successful, but the risk of failure included the cost of the upgrade project plus the cost of buying a new machine with the cost of additional delays to production. Based upon our shared project experience with the client and our proven ability to manage and mitigate project risks, the client felt comfortable choosing the best value solution (upgrade), even with its higher risk profile.
Working with an existing line is like walking on a tightrope. Since the machines are in production, you can’t easily shut the lines down for upgrades or modifications. Safety modifications and hardware swaps must be done within precise downtime windows. There isn’t any wiggle room.
Also, since it is too expensive to reprogram machines from scratch, you must work within legacy or obsolete code structures. The code needs to be examined, simulated, modified, and tested before the machine is returned to peak efficiency. There are many points in a project like this that could lead to failure if a proper risk mitigation plan is not managed effectively throughout the project.
For this project, the machine upgrades were a success. We installed new electrical panels, improved safety, and added a host of new features via four new HMIs. We increased machine production speed and demonstrated 98 percent availability on a machine that was more than 30 years old.
Machines are only as good as their operators. To ensure a smooth transition from the commissioning phase to production, we provided operators with training manuals and a two-week training period before manning the helm. This additional time allowed our team to effectively transfer technical details and operational knowledge and train operators how to utilize new features via the upgraded HMI screens.
All hardware/software technologies have a planned obsolescence and will eventually come to their EOL. The obsolescence risk mitigation process is a cycle that begins with a thorough audit to effectively monitor asset lifecycle status and create a plan for migration. A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) database could centralize this information and identify internal subject matter experts who can be held responsible for collecting and maintaining lifecycle information, but many manufacturers don’t have a resource they can specifically dedicated to this task. This is another area where third-party vendors, suppliers, and integrators can help you develop a strategy that will save you time and money for planning, maintaining, monitoring, and mitigating obsolescence risks to your manufacturing assets and technologies.
If obsolete hardware and software is putting your operations at risk, check out our Manufacture’s Guide to Managing Control System Obsolescence or contact us to see how Polytron’s highly experienced team can help.