Durable goods customers expect long-term availability of spare parts to maintain their product. This puts a strain on supply chains. Part suppliers want to obsolete older generations of parts with declining demand and reassign resources to new, growing generations. Meanwhile, durable goods...

A last time buy provides the final opportunity for a manufacturer to order a spare part before it is retired from a supplier’s production line. Last time buys are common in durable goods industries and can allow manufacturers of heavy equipment, machinery or airplanes to continue supporting...