ABB Product Lifecycle for Pulp & Paper

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An important goal of ABB is to help our customers to protect their investments in ABB systems and products by transparently sharing with our customers the risks of continued support that grow as systems become older. 

While our solutions often serve our customers for decades, the opportunity to follow a clear, upgradable program enables customers to have a safe, cybersecure, maintainable system with the latest functionalities to better achieve their goals. And as systems age, there can also be risks that are related to the availability of underlying components or software. Typically, these risks start to become evident after about 10 years of operation, but risks related to software may appear in shorter cycles, driven by lifecycle support decisions made by suppliers of operating systems, for example.

Generally, ABB’s intention is to support our systems as long as possible, with best efforts made even for the oldest systems. But limits to this support can arise when components or software becomes unavailable in the market. Many efforts are made by our design and supply chain teams to reduce these risks, with design modifications for available components, and even with large last-time buys of scarce components. We are often able to extend the lifecycle of our systems well beyond the lifecycles of the underlying components or software.

Fortunately, ABB also offers many sensible upgrade steps for customer to take in order to refresh our systems and reduce or remove these risks and even restart the clock on the system’s lifecycle, rather than fully replacing the system. This also helps customers extend the lifecycle of their products to minimize waste and production-related emissions, for as long as is viable. We also offer buy-back programs for applicable solutions and there is work in progress to enable circularity of hardware.

But every system has its practical lifetime limit, and so we transparently categorize each solution's lifecycle status in one of four phases. These phases help customers decide when they can expand upon a solution or when an upgrade or replacement is needed. 

ABB's Lifecycle phases

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The 4 defined phases are ACTIVE, CLASSIC, LIMITED, OBSOLETE. 

A product is ACTIVE once it has been released for sale. The product is actively sold, supported and maintained, including enhancements and product improvements.

A product will become CLASSIC when ABB decides to remove the product from active sale for new installations or retrofit projects, usually because the risks described above have become too challenging to overcome, or else a new and improved product has been introduced to replace it. This typically occurs after at least 10 years of ACTIVE phase, but that can vary based on circumstances, especially in software. Spare parts and service are still readily available in CLASSIC phase. The efforts and capability of product development becomes limited to changes necessary to enable continued support in the face of obsolescence of underlying components. In the CLASSIC phase, customers should start seriously consider budgeting for upgrades or replacement in the approaching few years.

When a product enters the LIMITED phase, the product has reached manufacturing end. Technical support and spare parts availability continues on a best-effort basis but is no longer guaranteed. The total installed base of such systems will be decreasing rapidly, reducing the technical support capability. Significant risks begin to appear for support, spare parts and data security. In the LIMITED phase, customers should have firm plans to upgrade or replace within 1-2 years.

Once a system or product reaches the OBSOLETE phase, ABB can no longer guarantee support of the product, as certain physical or software components have become completely unavailable and any last-time buys of components may have been depleted. Availability of spare parts and service are often no longer available, and data security becomes very compromised. Local service organizations may still be able to provide some level of support on a best effort basis, but the availability of higher level support to those teams is highly compromised or nonexistent. Spare parts may still be available but could become unavailable at any time. Data security is at high risk. In the OBSOLETE phase, customer need to upgrade or replace as soon as possible to avoid substantial risk to production uptime which in certain cases may be unrecoverable by ABB.

Users of ABB products and systems benefit from this phased and transparent approach which enables better planning and life cycle management, and reduces data security risks.  

If you are not clear on the lifecycle status of the ABB solutions installed in your mill then please reach out to your ABB account manager or our team below. Alternatively you can find out more about ABB Pulp & Paper Care service agreements here.

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