Software Obsolescence in Defence

Software plays an important role in Defence Manufacturing. Almost every project in defence manufacturing sectors has got software with various degrees of complexity and dependencies. Whilst various research and studies have been conducted on system obsolescence, and tools developed to cost systems and components obsolescence, no major research has been undertaken to develop a framework to estimate cost of software obsolescence. Software becomes obsolete even when it is completely functional but not useful. This creates a huge cost burden if not checked and controlled proactively. The aim of this paper is to understand the current practices in identifying software obsolescence, types of software obsolescence and costing of software obsolescence. The paper involves results regarding software obsolescence from a series of interviews and case studies with the MoD project teams, and literature reviews, to help project manager, Obsolescence researchers, obsolescence managers and software developers in identifying the key issues and cost drivers of software obsolescence.Disclaimer: This paper present authors own views.