Standards Development

Scope

This document provides supplemental support for obsolescence management of any digital asset that is used to provide a product or service. Such assets may be stand alone or be part of a larger system.

Examples of digital assets are:

• Software
• electronic hardware with integrated software elements
• protocols
• data files (including digital twins and 3d models)
• online services

In addition to deliverable digital assets, the scope of the proposed standard will include elements of obsolescence management not explicitly covered elsewhere; these include: -

• Processes, facilities. toolsets, design data, intermediate work products, and suitably qualified personnel necessary for the initial development, ongoing maintenance, and mid-life updates - collectively known as the software development environment (SDE).

• Processes, facilities. toolsets, use cases, test data, intermediate work products, and suitably qualified personnel necessary for verification and validation, customer acceptance testing, and preparation of safety cases - collectively known as the software test environment (STE).

• Dependencies on 3rd-party software and electronic hardware components embodied in the target platform on which the deliverable digital assets operate, or which form part of the SDE / STE; this may include technical, support, IPR, export controls, commercial and licencing issues.

*Note – consider infrastructure required to operate final installation e.g. GPS, weather data, telecoms protocols, 3G retirement

The specific list of configuration items to be managed will depend on the type of digital assets involved as may be characterised by application domain, operating constraints, or requirements of legislation and regulation.

The aim of this standard is to instantiate and expand the broad approach to obsolescence management set out in BS EN 62402:2019 Obsolescence management for digital assets in particular.

Purpose

Digital assets challenge existing ways of managing obsolescence due to:

• Increased rapidity of product change
• Increased complexity of dependencies between assets
• Increased volume of assets
• Assets that are integrated into third party operating systems (e.g. control system uses a desktop PC for a user interface)
• Assets that depend on operational 3rd party infrastructure such as Cloud Computing Platforms, Global Positioning System, radio transmission networks

Some guidance on obsolescence management of software is provided in BS EN 62402:2019 Obsolescence management, but this is largely historical in its approach and does not address the scale and complexity of digital assets being created today, or the recent advances in software engineering techniques. The digital assets may originate from diverse sources, may have different support lifecycles, and may have different constraints that affect their obsolescence status and through-life viability of the product or service to which they contribute. This proposed standard is necessary to enable organisational capability improvement in obsolescence management including each tangible and intangible item or dependency comprising the deliverable asset, SDE, and STE.

The ultimate aim is to ensure that a deliverable digital asset is supportable on a whole life basis by ensuring that obsolescence is managed end-to-end. The proposed standard will be supplemental to IEC 62402-1 Obsolescence management (now in development). It is intended that it will become a new part in the IEC 62402 family of standards.