4 ms·

It's not that difficult. If you have an internal ERP product code for the spare part in question, it is swappable. If the repair shop asks for a single IC chi

It's not that difficult. If you have an internal ERP product code for the spare part in question, it is swappable. If the repair shop asks for a single IC chip instead of a complete PCB or ECU, they obviously have the skills and need to replace it, making it a valid spare part request. If you need software or specialized tools to configure or install a part, you obviously cannot withhold said tools from the repair shop.

amdavidson 9y ago
Having a part number in my system does not mean that it is a reasonable case for a spare part. These are actual examples from my business: I have part numbers for raw powders that I have not yet sintered into ceramics. I have part numbers for parts that go into a welded and inseparable sub-assemblies. I have part numbers for components that are bonded together with glass seals that cannot be repaired if separated. It is easy to see how you cannot just use the BOM to determine the list of spare parts and it is easy to see how a manufacturer could simply pot their whole unit in epoxy for "structural" reasons and prevent any individual spare part or sub-assembly from being useful.
- admax88q 9y ago
  To be fair though, if the law mandated that you make all of those available as spare parts you could. Even if many of them are not useful to most consumers, it's not like you're unable to sell some of the ceramic powder, or one part of a welded component.
  - chuckkir 9y ago
    But maintaining this inventory of partial parts that maybe one person might request for perhaps long after production has stopped is cost (and space) prohibitive. Sure you could do it, but then it probably wouldn't make sense to build the widget in the first place.
bluGill 9y ago
As a manufacture can we do the same? Can I force whoever made the IC that broke to make a new one? It seems like every year we are redesigning out boards because another part went out of production. We have a lot of embedded systems written in assembly for an 8-bit CPU that is no longer made. The electronics are easy (I'm not an EE) but it will be years before we can replace the software that currently has been running in the field with zero known bugs - I'd love to get those CPUs that work perfectly made again. Instead we bought a warehouse worth, and we hope it is enough to satisfy all our warranty needs.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  If your systems are designed for greater modularity, then it would be easier to replace board X version 2, in a vehicle that was manufactured when version 2 was the production-ready part, with a board X hardware version 8, with firmware 8.0-2.2 installed to emulate the part that was shipped with the vehicle. The important thing is that identical inputs yield identical outputs. The rest of the vehicle doesn't care what's in the black box. Then you wouldn't have to warehouse old, obsolete parts. You just have to warehouse old, obsolete embedded-software developers. That's probably cheaper if you have enough volume. Also, if your company is still programming in assembly instead of a higher-level language, such as C, which has been available for 45 years now, I can safely say you are all hoist on your own petard. If you really want reliability, there's always Ada. You can't expect the 80196 to stick around forever.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    The point is we need to design hardware version 8, that is not free. Our volumes are not very high: designing revision 7 in the actually lifespan now that we need version 8 means that the cost/per part of version 7 was a few thousand dollars for a board that costs ~$5 to manufacture. If we had known what part would be next version 7 wouldn't have used that part. The vehicle does not care what is in the black box, but that is only true once input/outputs are actually identical. It is .01 volts different has killed us in random failures. It is 1ms faster, is that better or now - in some cases that 1ms slower was depended on and we didn't know it anymore. We don't program anything new in assembly. However for a lot of old embedded controllers if it works don't break it. There are no known bugs with the old code. Suddenly the CPU isn't available and we have to create a new one. Marketing can't come up with any new feature that a new CPU would enable so it is strictly and engineering exercise.

amdavidson 9y ago

Having a part number in my system does not mean that it is a reasonable case for a spare part. These are actual examples from my business: I have part numbers for raw powders that I have not yet sintered into ceramics. I have part numbers for parts that go into a welded and inseparable sub-assemblies. I have part numbers for components that are bonded together with glass seals that cannot be repaired if separated. It is easy to see how you cannot just use the BOM to determine the list of spare parts and it is easy to see how a manufacturer could simply pot their whole unit in epoxy for "structural" reasons and prevent any individual spare part or sub-assembly from being useful.

admax88q 9y ago
To be fair though, if the law mandated that you make all of those available as spare parts you could. Even if many of them are not useful to most consumers, it's not like you're unable to sell some of the ceramic powder, or one part of a welded component.
- chuckkir 9y ago
  But maintaining this inventory of partial parts that maybe one person might request for perhaps long after production has stopped is cost (and space) prohibitive. Sure you could do it, but then it probably wouldn't make sense to build the widget in the first place.

bluGill 9y ago

As a manufacture can we do the same? Can I force whoever made the IC that broke to make a new one? It seems like every year we are redesigning out boards because another part went out of production. We have a lot of embedded systems written in assembly for an 8-bit CPU that is no longer made. The electronics are easy (I'm not an EE) but it will be years before we can replace the software that currently has been running in the field with zero known bugs - I'd love to get those CPUs that work perfectly made again. Instead we bought a warehouse worth, and we hope it is enough to satisfy all our warranty needs.

logfromblammo 9y ago
If your systems are designed for greater modularity, then it would be easier to replace board X version 2, in a vehicle that was manufactured when version 2 was the production-ready part, with a board X hardware version 8, with firmware 8.0-2.2 installed to emulate the part that was shipped with the vehicle. The important thing is that identical inputs yield identical outputs. The rest of the vehicle doesn't care what's in the black box. Then you wouldn't have to warehouse old, obsolete parts. You just have to warehouse old, obsolete embedded-software developers. That's probably cheaper if you have enough volume. Also, if your company is still programming in assembly instead of a higher-level language, such as C, which has been available for 45 years now, I can safely say you are all hoist on your own petard. If you really want reliability, there's always Ada. You can't expect the 80196 to stick around forever.
- bluGill 9y ago
  The point is we need to design hardware version 8, that is not free. Our volumes are not very high: designing revision 7 in the actually lifespan now that we need version 8 means that the cost/per part of version 7 was a few thousand dollars for a board that costs ~$5 to manufacture. If we had known what part would be next version 7 wouldn't have used that part. The vehicle does not care what is in the black box, but that is only true once input/outputs are actually identical. It is .01 volts different has killed us in random failures. It is 1ms faster, is that better or now - in some cases that 1ms slower was depended on and we didn't know it anymore. We don't program anything new in assembly. However for a lot of old embedded controllers if it works don't break it. There are no known bugs with the old code. Suddenly the CPU isn't available and we have to create a new one. Marketing can't come up with any new feature that a new CPU would enable so it is strictly and engineering exercise.