Design and Implementation of Software for Technological Forecasting and Modeling Technological Obsolescence

In a world that is highly infused with technology, it is important that an organization knows how many resources such as manpower, equipment, and funding are needed at what time so that the organization does not suffer unnecessary risks. It is also important to know when to replace equipment. After examining different methods of forecasting, it was determined that manipulation of growth curves was the best way to determine the likelihood of device failure at a specific time. An approach in engineering economics was used to estimate the cost due to the failure of various devices or groups of devices. To reduce the likelihood of making mistakes in calculating the probability of device failure and its costs, a MatLab program was developed as a key output of this thesis. The program has a set of graphical user interfaces that use s-curves for measuring the growth, decay, and substitution of one type of device by another in the market. A by-product of this thesis is the publication of an operating manual for this program.