Obsolescence Management for Sustainment-Dominated Military Systems

As more and more Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) parts are being used in sustainment-dominated systems where average product lifecycle is above 25 years, obsolescence management becomes a greater concern for program managers. The lack of management and poor planning for obsolescence cause companies, governments, and military organizations to spend progressively more to deal with aging systems. For a successful obsolescence management, program managers should consider both the cost-effectiveness and system availability issues simultaneously and should implement appropriate solution approaches. In this chapter, the authors first define the obsolescence management in sustainment-dominated systems and then give a brief summary of the related literature. They finally discuss and propose multiple criteria decision-making methodologies and evolutionary algorithms to tackle the management problem.