How does your company define (and control) Obsolete objects?

[pnelson]

I am curious how others define Obsolete and if there are any industry or national standards for the definition.  Since the Search in Windchill will find the Latest + Released iteration, simply promoting an object to Obsolete doesn't really remove it from the search results, and users can see previously Released iterations on the History tab.  We currently move Obsolete state objects to a restricted folder as well when they are considered Obsolete.  Departments such as Warranty and Service still need access to objects that were manufactured and sold, so they have access to that folder. This then brings up the question of what defines Obsolete, because if something had a safety issue that caused it to become Obsolete most likely no one other than Engineering should have access.  So, what does Obsolete mean to you, and how do you treat those objects?  Thanks for all your thoughts and opinions.

[ScottMorris]

Sad to see there are no responses to this question. I am also interested in how people are managing lifecycle states and revisions. I would assume a lot of this discussion also depends on how Revise is being used in the process. Hopefully there's another discussion on this topic out there. 

[KNielsen]

I wonder if there are others that can explain this some more?

I have worked in another PLM system, where the previous revision would get the state "revised" when the new revision is "released".

- If you then wanted to illustrate that the revision should not be use again, because of errors, then the state could be changed from revised to Discontinued. 

- Does anyone use this method or do you have more released revisions, where it is the latest that are released on BOMs?