1. Communicating obsolescence alerts in industry

For manufacturers of long-life assets such as aeronautical, railway and nuclear equipment, obsolescence is a known and unavoidable problem; the electronic components used in these products and systems may only be available for five years, but the assets may have an expected operational life of 30 years or more (figure 1 ). The challenge facing these industries is to ensure the continued operation of systems well beyond the time when manufacturers no longer produce or support the components they contain.