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Product Lifecycle Management
Minimizing your long term cost of ownership is a key goal at Abaco. We do this in a variety of ways – from designing-in compatibility across generations of products to a range of long term support services that minimize the potential impact of obsolescence.
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PLM
Supporting customer programs across the product lifecycle through controlled design and long‑term support.
We design successive generations of products to remain compatible with their predecessors, simplifying technology insertion while improving performance and reducing cost. This approach helps customers avoid obsolescence and extend the usable life of critical systems.
Our Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) services are tailored to program-specific needs and long-term support strategies. From product health checks and obsolescence monitoring to controlled storage and lifetime buys, we preserve the knowledge, infrastructure, and capability required to support our products for as long as our customers need them.
Abaco was among the first companies to bring to market commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that are rugged by design–as opposed to products that are ruggedized as an afterthought.
PLM
Defensive Approach
- With the defensive approach, you freeze the design of the system from the outset of production. The impact of obsolescence is then managed through a combination of component health checks, 'buy ahead' of spare parts and their long-term environmentally controlled storage. Abaco provides these services for customers who determine that the defensive approach is their best option.
- The defensive approach sees configuration control used to manage any potential changes to the build state.
- Although the potential for obsolescence increases with time and features/performance may lag behind more up-to-date systems, this defensive approach ensures excellent equipment interchangeability and the highest in-service reliability for the whole program life.
PLM
Progressive Approach
- The progressive approach brings technology insertion into play. This enables regular, planned system updates that can take advantage of the latest COTS technologies, facilitated by standard product architectures and layers of software insulation. This strategy minimizes the impact of obsolescence while ensuring that features and performance stay up to date.
- Both the above strategies have potential downsides. With the defensive approach, that might be the cost of finding component EOL buys. With the progressive approach, there may be the possibility of introducing unforeseen problems with more up to-date products. It may simply be that the circumstances of a particular program do not suit either of these strategies.
PLM
Mixed Approach
- Under a mixed approach, it is possible to combine the defensive approach with technology insertion to achieve the optimum result. An example of this is to break a 15-year project into three planned 5-year cycles. Having initially frozen the design, you would use defensive techniques for Phase 1 production - monitoring obsolescence and finding EOL buys while taking a progressive approach to planning for technology insertion system enhancements to be integrated for Phase 2.
- This is a good compromise for many programs, providing the benefits of the two methods while minimizing the potential downside of each of them. Abaco Systems offers a flexible array of services enabling you to adopt the strategy best suited to your program scenario.
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PLM
Configuration Management Services
We help customers integrate higher-performance technologies while maintaining form, fit, function, and software compatibility — a critical advantage for defense and aerospace programs that last decades.
Our Configuration Management Services support risk reduction and long-term control by managing system changes throughout the program lifecycle. Customers can choose to be informed of changes as they occur or participate directly in change approval to maintain configuration baselines.
We generate and maintain complete manufacturing data packages covering hardware and software configurations, ensuring repeatability and consistency for future procurements.