New strategies for old components

MOST MACHINE BUILDERS and integrators get to experience the joy of supporting obsolete machines and control hardware. What was easy to support and understand in the past is often difficult and somewhat annoying, if not impossible, to support today—10 years later. Much time is spent searching spare part shelves, old PCs and the Internet for the hardware and software needed.

Starting now, gather all the machine and program history, both on paper and digitally, and keep it in a locked, controlled file cabinet and server. Keeping good documentation such as the schematic and program descriptors, spares on the shelf and those old software floppies and CDs is good practice. While the internet and online depositories are helpful, detailed plans for the replacing, designing, programming and upgrading of obsolete components are a must.

(SOURCE: CONCEPT SYSTEMS)

Messy obsolescence

Figure 1: Those ugly, obsolete components are not good—unless you have one that is needed.

A common strategy is a manufacturer stockpiling parts they know are obsolete. “This can work for a time, but, in most cases, it is more of a delay tactic,” says Flynn. “This strategy makes sense if the end product is going to be obsolete itself soon and the machinery mothballed. However, in most cases the parts and those with the ability to install them will eventually be gone.”

There are those who have held on to old equipment and want to keep it running until they have no choice but to replace the entire system. “I have personally witnessed some scenarios along these lines, usually related to older PLCs and programming languages that are no longer in use,” says Flynn. “The big manufacturers don’t want to support these systems, but often times they do still have the ability to do so—for a steep price.”

Proactive strategies for obsolescence

“Hearing that your components are obsolete is never good news in any type of manufacturing industry,” says Jerry Flynn, principal engineer at Concept Systems (www.conceptsystemsinc.com), a member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA, www.controlsys.org), headquartered in Albany, Oregon. “For most, the first thing that comes to mind is always, ‘How much is this going to cost me?’ Depending on the situation, it can be a lot. It isn’t just the cost of new components, but the downtime associated with replacing them. Fortunately in today’s world most manufacturers are rather proactive about informing their customers when components will be going obsolete.”

This is all well and good, but what if you have a breakdown and only then learn that your failed component went end-of-life five years ago? asked Flynn. “Fortunately there are choices out there,” says Flynn. “A simple Google search will reveal a large number of companies that make their living off of refurbishing and remanufacturing old and obsolete parts. Sometimes you can even find parts on sites like eBay. The downside to this is that the parts rarely come with any type of warranty; they can be extremely expensive; and at times they are even broken upon arrival (Figure 1).”

Plan for obsolescence

“Many control system suppliers drive change and, subsequently, obsolescence without a good plan,” says Craig Souser, president/CEO at JLS Automation (www.jlsautomation.com) in York, Pennsylvania. “However, the big challenge is when the form factor that you used on one system changes. For example, maybe you bought a drive with an integrated power supply, and now it’s a modular configuration with separate components that have a completely different orientation, interconnects, connectivity or all the above.”

Most parts, or only the most important ones, will become obsolete, and that includes the part number itself. “Every purchased part we buy gets our unique part number,” says Gary H. Lucas, director of innovation at Innovative Treatment Products (www.innovatreat.com) in Owings Mills, Maryland. “We never use the manufacturer or vendor part number as our own; they too frequently change. When we are alerted that a part is no longer available it is immediately marked as inactive in our MRP system. This means it can’t be put on purchase or sales orders but is still in our system for reference when a customer calls. The new and different part gets a new part number in our system, along with the new manufacturer’s part number.”

Engineering should be involved with part number changes. “Nearly every obsolete part change elevates the process from purchasing up to engineering for review, says Lucas. “Our system tracks every part in every job so we know exactly which customers have the obsolete part.”

Dealing with obsolete components in a plant has several risks and associated costs, says Swapnil Adkar, global product manager at Honeywell (www.honeywell.com), a member of CSIA. “Plant operations and maintenance teams need to carefully plan their activities and approach toward managing control systems,” he says.

Examples include ensuring the right inventory of obsolete parts is maintained until migration of these systems is completed. It also requires carefully planning any modification to hardware and software with the right mitigation plans. The plans should include ensuring expertise and knowledge of obsolete systems at the site is retained. If not, a migration to new, state-of-the-art PLC technology, not only will ensure system operation, but improve plant availability and reliability.

Hardware and software

It is not uncommon to search the Internet for the obsolete components, especially to support existing equipment. “We are forced to do this all the time as the plants we build are frequently quite old and operate 24/7. Moving to a new PLC would be an enormous task,” says Lucas at Innovative Treatment Products. “Unfortunately customers don’t seem to understand that PLC parts should have critical spares just like pumps. If the PLC doesn’t work, it is likely none of the pumps will either.”

There will often be times when you will need obsolete components for jobs you are currently working on, says Mark Teed, controls program manager at Applied Manufacturing Technologies (www.appliedmfg.com), a CSIA member, headquartered in Orion, Michigan. “This often happens when a customer, typically a second- or third-tier supplier, wants a duplicate machine, and a period of time has gone by,” he explains. “In this case during the quoting process, you will need to inform the customer of a potential problem in this area. If the customer still wants identical components, then the search is on.”

Software should be part of the obsolescence discussion, as well. “When I think of programming, I think of PLCs and HMIs,” says Teed. “It seems like every month or two manufacturers come out with new ‘rev’ levels (revisions) of software. Some of these new rev levels are so specific that even the reps for the product can’t keep up with them.”

We have a rep for one of the major PLC/HMI manufacturers come to our office quarterly just to try to keep us up to date on these changes, explains Teed. “So, remember, if you choose to use an obsolete PLC/HMI, the software you currently have in your computer may not program it,” he says. “I have in the past needed to find and purchase an old laptop with a Windows XP operating system, a PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) slot and an RS-232 port to have the ability to program old equipment, and I still have it. So, when thinking about using an obsolete PLC/HMI, take into consideration the amount of time and effort it will take just to have the capability to communicate with it.”

Why not just upgrade?

It is not easy to just upgrade the design before obsolescence occurs. “The saying, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ applies here,” says Russ Bullmer, director of technical product support at Allied Electronics & Automation (www.alliedelec.com). “If the customer is an OEM machine builder that designed in various control components, they invested a lot of time and money and resources to get the equipment running and approved.”

If the customer is a user of machinery that contains control components, oftentimes, upgrading equipment means downtime, so why change if the current machinery is running? “There is also an inherent risk if a user changes parts that are not the same,” says Bullmer. “If the component change results in a piece of equipment not functioning properly, who is responsible for the lost production time? Our experience is that most maintenance people will not change a component until it is their only option and they have exhausted all other options for an ‘exact cross.’”

Ease of design and programming needed

There are ways to minimize design and programming time needed when replacing obsolete components. “Cost, risk and time for migration can be minimized by selecting a control system with sufficient tools and documents to simplify the process,” says Swapnil Adkar at Honeywell. “Replacing obsolete components involves careful planning and execution. Reverse engineering of design and application programs requires significant engineering effort. Planning for replacement starts as soon as the decision for replacement is made, and every step in the process needs to be supported with documentation. Leveraging a migration tool with the ability to document information right from the site survey to conversion of the design and application simplifies reverse-engineering efforts.”

Select hardware and software platforms with a proven track record of long-term availability, support and service. “PC-based control technology is inherently well-suited to combating obsolescence for machine builders because of platform openness and the use of standard hardware built from the deepest pool of commercially available components on the planet,” says Eric Reiner, industrial PC product specialist at Beckhoff Automation (www.beckhoff.com). “By strategically sourcing components from companies like Intel and ARM, PC-based control manufacturers can ensure lengthy product lifecycles and extended service that can go for decades.”

If a machine builder has the viable option to stick with what it has for a longer period of time, it naturally means less engineering costs in the long run, continues Reiner. “This is another point where a wise choice of suppliers is critical—you can lower your cost of engineering by working with the suppliers that help you handle migration easily, and only when necessary,” he says.

Deal with the challenge

“The focus here should be on avoiding the challenge of obsolescence altogether,” says John Fryer, senior director, industry solutions, Stratus Technologies a member of CSIA. “Companies should retrofit the infrastructure with longer shelf-life technology from vendors that have longevity and set-and-forget solutions with automated diagnostics and component failure mitigation.”

Some vendors would rather claim non-obsolescence. “One of the key factors contributing to industrial-controlsystem obsolescence is the fact that most manufacturers are dependent on third-party semiconductor suppliers,” says Albert Rooyakkers, founder and CEO of Bedrock Automation (www.bedrockautomation.com). “Because chips tend to have shorter life spans than industrial control systems, vendors are likely to obsolete the whole system based on its components. A variety of embedded components may become obsolete sooner and cause the vendor to obsolete a system sooner.”

Bedrock Automation is in a somewhat unique situation, in that, being owned by a large semiconductor company, Maxim Integrated, it manufactures almost all of its own chips and thus has total control of when to obsolete a component, if ever.

Perhaps Flynn at Concept Systems sums it up best. “In short, the best way to deal with obsolete components is to be proactive about it—examine what lifecycle phase your components are in,” says Flynn. “If they are approaching end of life, contact the manufacturer or integrator about a plan to bring things up to date. There are many options for doing so, and going forward can give you many advantages you hadn’t initially anticipated, such as increased production, digital copies of your electrical schematics and less maintenance requirements. The best strategy for dealing with obsolete components is replacing them before they become obsolete.”