An end-of-life notice is rarely one decision. It is a chain of them: where the part is used, how much exposure is active, whether a last-time buy is warranted, what a replacement would cost to qualify, and whether any of it needs a redesign.
PCNshark connects the EOL evidence to BOM usage, program impact, alternate candidates, and current sourcing conditions — and preserves the documented response on an organization-wide component record. The lifecycle status, the evidence behind it, the alternates evaluated, the sourcing estimates consulted, and the final decision stay together instead of scattering across inboxes and spreadsheets.
Available on Starter and Team. A payment method is required.
PCNshark organizes obsolescence evidence, exposure, and the decision workflow. Engineering owns qualification, sourcing owns the buy, and the team makes every lifecycle decision — nothing is decided automatically.
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The notice itself is the easy part. What follows is a chain of questions, each owned by a different person, each needing data that usually lives somewhere else:
Each question is answerable. The failure mode is that the answers live in different tools, the deadline lives in a calendar, and the decision lives in an email. PCNshark keeps the chain on one component record.
The same EOL event, handled two ways. The response paths — last-time buy, qualify the manufacturer's recommended replacement, qualify a functional alternate, redesign, or accept and monitor — are chosen by the team. PCNshark organizes the evidence and context; it does not choose a response.
One component record carries the lifecycle status, the evidence behind it, the exposure, the deadline, the alternates evaluated, the sourcing context consulted, and the decision — so the organization answers each obsolescence question once.
When a part goes EOL, PCNshark surfaces replacement candidates two ways — and never blurs the difference between them. Both are available on Team plans and above.
Extracted from the EOL notice itself
Ranked by specification similarity across candidate parts
The successor the manufacturer names
A match percentage and the specific specs that differ
The manufacturer's suggested starting point
A prioritization signal for engineering evaluation
Not a verified drop-in replacement
Not a qualification result
Engineering, after review and qualification
Engineering, after review and qualification
Alternate recommendations help prioritize engineering evaluation. They do not replace qualification. PCNshark never certifies a part as drop-in compatible.
EOL information rarely arrives one way. A PCN, a PDN, an EOL letter, a manufacturer email, a distributor listing, a supplier call, an internal sourcing observation — whatever form the evidence takes, attach it to the lifecycle status so the decision has a source, not a rumor.
One view of everything the part touches: which BOMs use it, at which revisions, across which programs, with which impacts still open. Exposure stops being a spreadsheet-search exercise.
Stock, MOQ, price breaks, estimated lead time, authorized vs. independent availability, and a market median at 1k across roughly 15 distributors. Distributor data, refreshed on demand — estimates, not quotes.
Set a lifecycle status manually with the evidence behind it. When later evidence conflicts, PCNshark flags the conflict for review — a manually reviewed decision is never silently overwritten.
Who changed the status, when, from what to what, why, and on what evidence. The next engineer who hits this part inherits the reasoning, not just the conclusion.
Find and attach the datasheet from available sources, or upload your own copy — so the evaluation of an aging part or its candidate replacement starts from the document, not a search.
An illustrative end-of-life notice for a widely used microcontroller, and what the component record shows once the notice is captured. Illustrative data — every value is invented.
Illustrative data — all values invented. Sourcing figures are distributor estimates refreshed on demand, not quotes or availability guarantees. The 94% spec match prioritizes evaluation; qualification remains with engineering.
Found late, in a distributor listing or a forwarded email
Evidence captured from the notices your team receives
Search BOM files one by one
Where-used across monitored BOMs
Manual tally in a spreadsheet
BOMs, revisions, programs, open impacts on one record
Calendar entry and memory
Deadline connected to the part and its impacts
Distributor tabs, one by one
Stock, MOQ, price-break, and lead-time estimates across ~15 distributors, refreshed on demand
Cross-reference tables and datasheet hunting
Mfr-recommended + spec-ranked candidates (Team plans and above)
One blanket answer for every use
Per-line decisions and exclusions, mismatches flagged
Buried in email and meeting notes
Decision, rationale, and evidence on the component
Search old messages, ask around
Part-level decision history: who, when, old → new, why
PCNshark does not make lifecycle, qualification, or purchasing decisions automatically. Sourcing figures are distributor estimates refreshed on demand — not quotes, and not availability guarantees. Engineering owns qualification; sourcing owns the buy.
A last-time buy is an engineering-and-sourcing coordination event, not just a purchase. A practical checklist of what the team should have in hand — copyable and printable, no email required.
Your selections stay in your browser — nothing is uploaded, and no email is required to copy, print, or download.
PCNshark keeps the deadline, the exposure, the sourcing estimates, the alternate candidates, and the recorded decision on the same component record — so the LTB conversation starts with data instead of a document hunt.
The deadline is shared; the work is not. Exact ownership varies by company, product, and quality system — PCNshark records who owns what so the deadline does not become an argument.
Assess the technical impact, evaluate the recommended replacement and spec-ranked candidates, and own qualification — or the call that a redesign is the better path.
Track the LTB and last-ship deadlines, weigh stock, MOQ, and price-break estimates against expected demand, and execute the buy the team decides on.
Define the qualification and reliability requirements a replacement must meet, and the evidence the decision record must carry.
Say which programs carry the exposure, how long each remains in production, and what schedule risk a redesign would introduce.
PCNshark organizes the evidence, exposure, and decision workflow around the tools and judgment your team already brings.
Capture the EOL evidence, see the blast radius across BOMs and programs, weigh alternates and sourcing estimates, and record the decision where the next engineer will find it. The notice is the trigger; the component record is where the response lives.
EOL, last-time-buy, and BOM exposure — the full guide.
Read →What to pull out of an EOL or LTB notice, field by field.
Read →Manufacturer-recommended and spec-ranked candidates, evaluated on the record.
Read →Sourcing context across ~15 distributors, refreshed on demand.
Read →Workflow descriptions are based on PCNshark's current production capabilities. Sourcing figures are distributor estimates refreshed on demand, not quotes. Responsibilities and dispositions vary by company, product, quality system, and regulatory environment.
