Component Obsolescence Group (COG) Deutschland e.V. has a new executive committe

The members of the executive committee of the COG (Component Obsolescence Group) Deutschland e.V. non-profit industrial organisation who have recently been either elected or confirmed in office, Dr. Wolfgang Heinbach (Chairman, GMP German Machine Parts ), Axel Wagner, (Vice Cairman, Würth Elektronik eiSos), Matthias Kohls (Treasurer, Bombardier), Anke Bartel (TQ-Systems) and Stefanie Laufenberg-van Rickelen (van Rickelen), wish to pick up where the previous executive committee left off without interruption and continue its extremely successful work.

Dr. Wolfgang Heinbach and Axel Wagner, both long-standing COG members, succeed Ulrich Ermel (Puls) and Dr. Christian Gerber (Siemens), who helped shape the COG's successful work with their great voluntary commitment for many years. "More and more companies are looking critically and continuously at the problems of obsolescende. Together with others who are affected as well as suppliers they are seeking solutions in the COG. This is to be accounted to the indefatigable efforts of our predecessors", Dr. Heinbach acknowledges the work of the previous senior management team. The COG Chairman points out that there is, however, still a great need for clarification and action in many companies with regard to professional handling. "Our aim for the next two years is therefore to continue to find as many new fellow campaigners in industry and their associations who are prepared to actively take on this controversial topic. In many areas the problems caused by obsolescence will tend to become significantly more acute in the next few years. I am, for example, thinking here of the vast amounts of totally outdated software tools, or machinery and plant maintenance as a whole. They will gradually inherit the obsolescence issues of the electronics industry with increasing digitalisation and Industry 4.0. And as an association we will, of course, also continue to push ahead with the simplification and standardisation of obsolescence management processes", explains Dr. Heinbach.

Apart from involvement in a wide variety of national and international standardisation committees, the main focus of these efforts is the XML-based smartPCN standard which has been developed in-house. This user-specific configurable format supports companies in drastically reducing and ideally completely avoiding multiple processing of PCN and EOL messages. A video on the COG homepage illustrates the possibilities and benefits of this smartPCN standard.

The COG Deutschland e.V. non-profit organisation, founded in 2005, has set itself the aim of offering a manufacturer-independent discussion platform for companies affected by the problem of obsolescence along with its current 136 members to share knowledge of processes and solutions and together to drive on the development of efficient obsolescence strategies.

In addition to quarterly meetings with specialist presentations and reports from working and discussion groups, the internationally networked interest group also offers its members a large number of further different platforms for the direct and indirect exchange of information on the topic of obsolescence avoidance and management. "If product discontinuations are unavoidable we should at least attempt to keep the associated negative effects as small as possible. Thanks to the COG, a great deal has definitely developed positively here in recent years, but of course we also know that we still have a very long road before us", according to Dr. Heinbach.

For those who are interested, there is extensive information on COG Germany on the association's homepage at www.cog-d.de.