Obsolescence Policy

Obsolete Products

Spectrum products are declared obsolete once a replacement product is available. The reason for obsolescence is normally based on the availability of the required parts. Having replacement products also gives better specifications as new products are based on the latest technology and components. Furthermore, the experience and requests of customers when running the older product is also taken into account when developing and designing the replacement products.

Availibilty

We stock parts for our products in large quantities to allow the production of obsolete products for existing customers for several more years. However, obsolete products are no longer available for new customers except if there is some feature that is solely available for the obsolete product and not available on the replacement product. The production of the obsolete products is primarily reserved for existing customers that have designed their system or their OEM product and can't change to the replacement product easily.

As Spectrum products feature a modular design, where also the sub-components are modular, we have relatively high flexibility concerning our production organization. In most cases that allows us to offer obsolete products to existing customers for at least a couple of years. However as demand changes and component needs are shared between different product groups it is not possible to predict a specific period of availability. Changing the system design of our customers from obsolete to replacement products is beyond our control and large orders of the one or the other type may change the balance in either direction.
 

What products are obsolete?

Each obsolete product is clearly marked as obsolete on our website. Please see the right hand picture for an example. A link to our suggested replacement product is shown just below the picture.

Obsolete products are no longer shown in the parameter search engine unless you activate the Obsolete product status in the filter settings.

All obsolete and end-of-life products are shown on a separate page: obsolete and end-of-life products

Product Discontinuance Notice

For each product family that is discontinued Spectrum is offering a separate PDN (product discontinuance notice). The PDN has a replacement table which compares the main features of the obsolete product with the replacement product, a detailed feature comparison, an option replacement table and finally links to all the documents of interest.

The PDN for your product can be found directly on the obsolete and end-of-life products page or in the download section of each obsolete/end-of-life product. Please open the obsolete product and switch to the document tab to access the specific downloads (click on the picture to enlarge it)