An issue in engineering design is a system's design lifetime. This book provides a systemic qualitative and quantitative approach to these problems addressing, first, the technicality of durability, second, the marginal cost of durability, and, third, the durability choice problem for complex systems with network externalities (competition and market uncertainty) and obsolescence (technology evolution). Also addressed is the increasing tension between the design lifetimes of complex systems and the shortening time scales associated with the obsolescence of the technology. The book ends with a...

An issue in engineering design is a system's design lifetime. This book provides a systemic qualitative and quantitative approach to these problems addressing, first, the technicality of durability, second, the marginal cost of durability, and, third, the durability choice problem for complex systems with network externalities (competition and market uncertainty) and obsolescence (technology evolution). Also addressed is the increasing tension between the design lifetimes of complex systems and the shortening time scales associated with the obsolescence of the technology. The book ends with a...