New Source of Supply for Legacy Components with DoD Requirements

According to the Obsolescence Management team, housed within the U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center, 70% of electronics are obsolete before a system is deployed, and one component can become obsolete and resolved in a weapon system’s life cycle as many as ten times. For Original Equipment Manufacturers, maintaining many legacy products ties up critical resources and generally does not support a profitable business case. The true cost of supporting older, low volume products can translate to millions of dollars in inventory management and lost opportunity cost. Only products sold to strategic customers or at high enough volume survive. When a product is deemed End of Life (EOL), military programs must forecast demand far into the future and plan inventory space for a lifetime buy order. Other options may be to upgrade systems, find parts from other systems, repair products, or find a new source of supply altogether.  Global Circuit Innovations (GCI) provides the latter. GCI provides long-term, proactive assurance of continuity of supply for critical electronic components that are obsolete.  GCI’s solutions for microcircuits, Circuit Card Assemblies (CCAs), and other electronic components, are highly robust and reliable form, fit and function drop-in replacements that perform identically to the obsolete part they replace. GCI supports platform life extension thereby avoiding the need for expensive system redesign and re-qualification when an original component becomes obsolete during the lifetime of the system. GCI products and services also provide the potential for improved integrity, counterfeit avoidance, lower costs, and reduced risk over the lifetime of the assets. Often, when system redesigns are implemented, the average schedule is expected to take 5+ years to complete. In these scenarios, GCI solutions are an interim pathway to keep critical assets in service while a system redesign is in process, avoiding MICAP (Mission Impaired Capability Awaiting Parts) events. GCI has identified a microcircuit,  four circuit card assemblies, and one transformer on DLA’s “No Bid List” having had multiple solicitations for quote which did not result in a contract award  GCI assumes either the OEM no longer makes the part, or brokers no longer have inventory.  GCI proposes to reverse engineer form, fit and function drop-in replacements and become a new source of supply for each component, avoiding a MICAP event.