Planned obsolescence

Sometimes, however, an environmental warning has an unexpected source, a fiction or nonfiction writer who, for reasons of his or her own, chooses to produce a work about a new threat to the environment. This was the situation when Vance Packard wrote his 1959 best-seller The Waste Makers. Packard s book took as its subject planned obsolescence, the policy adopted by many manufacturers to build the products they made to be out of date in a predictable period. 

There are many barriers to and challenges for instrumentation commercialization. It seems that most often, the parties involved are working at crosspurposes. The (often academic) inventor is never satisfied and always wants to continue to improve his or her invention. The instrument company only wants to build and sell the product. They would also like to have planned obsolescence to guarantee future sales. The salesperson has to sell what he has now, while convincing the customer that it will meet all his needs. The customer wants a product that is inexpensive and will last forever. 

When consumer attention to the environment becomes paramount, companies will move away from planned obsolescence, instead, to products that have long life. 

Fixed capital investments are characterized by the fact that they have to be replaced after a number of years commonly referred to as service life or useful life period. This replacement is not necessarily due to wear and tear of equipment. Other factors include technological advances that may render the equipment obsolete. Furthermore, over the usefiil life of the equipment, the plant should plan to recover the capital cost expenditure. In this regard, the notion of depreciation is useful. Depreciation or amortization is an annual allowance which is set aside to account for the wear, tear, and obsolescence of a process such that by the end of the useful life of the process, enough fund is accumulated to replace the process. The simplest method for determining depreciation is referred to as the straight line method in which... 

The pace of aircraft development was such that even Fighter Command was confronted with a serious problem of obsolescence in 1950. The RAF s jet fighters in service at that date, the Gloster Meteor and the de Havilland Vampire, had straight wings, which were aerodynamically less efficient than swept-back ones. The earliest versions of the Meteor and Vampire had entered service in 1944 and 1946 respectively, but plans for their replacement were related to an assumption that a major war would be unlikely to occur until about 1957. Resources for research and development had been drastically reduced at the end of the war and it was decided to take a risk in concentrating on really big advances in... 

The committee investigated current obsolescence-related vulnerabilities in the CMA program as well as reviewed its past experience and future plans. Areas examined included the expected life cycle of the facilities themselves, the availabihty of spare and replacement equipment parts, disassembly robotics, furnaces and afterburners, and control systems. 

Information management is important to the management of obsolescence at stockpile sites, because it tracks the history of changes in the facilities and personnel over the lifetime of operations. Data of this sort can aid in identifying areas of potential obsolescence, facilitate forward planning, provide a permanent record that documents operations, and allow tracking of abnormal incidents. 

In addition to a concern for the continuing operability of facilities, the management of facility obsolescence is affected on a programwide level by organizational structure, contractual relationships and incentives, community and regulatory relationships, and planning for emergencies and closure. 

A result of this is that the strategies for obsolescence management developed at individual sites have significant differences. The CMA is encouraging interchanges among the sites and hopes that each may improve its plans by understanding approaches at other sites. 

Development of consistait obsolescence management system) 4 (Maintain skunk works) 7 (Replace inapplicable DOD standards) 23 (Key equipment planning for closure)... 

Finding 23. Plans for mitigating the obsolescence of key equipment that will be required for closure of chemical agent stockpile incineration facilities, such as the LlC and MPF furnaces with their PAS/PFS systems, have not yet been developed. 

At the request of the CMA, site contractors have begun to develop plans for managing obsolescence. The TOCDF site started making plans independently the Washington Group International (WGI) sites developed a three-site initiative for the other incineration sites. 

The plan is to use the database information to develop an Obsolescent Equipment Management Lifecycle program (OEM-LP), which is an approach that was originally started at TOCDF. Aspects of this OEM-LP system were shown to the committee during a site visit to TOCDF in March 2006, and this work in progress seems to be progressing in a suitable manner. 

Objectives Interview staff and personnel at the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility (ANCDF) on obsolescence. Tour the plant facilities and survey specific areas as needed. Plan final site visits and establish timeline for developing full message draft. Discuss study organization and approach, committee activities, report development, and future activities. 

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