Planned obsolescence can artificially increase sales by stimulating desire or perceived need. This can be done in many ways and some companies are releasing newer models sooner than necessary or engineering the product to fail after a certain amount of use. In recent years, we have observed a change in the pattern of planned obsolescence strategies employed by technological companies, shifting from aesthetic to technological obsolescence. The reaction to this model comes from social enterprises and grassroots movements addressing the circular economy and repairability. This paper illustrates these relationships in context, taking the mobile phone industry as a case study. We focus on product architecture and product features, as a reference point to discuss the embodiment of strategies, and the degree of control the consumer is given for repairing the product. Using netnography as a method to collect data in a digital-mediated environment, this paper highlights how planned obsolescence strategies are embedded in product characteristics and summarises their evolution. It concludes by opposing planned obsolescence strategies to circular economy principles to discuss more sustainable pathways for the smartphone industry.
This research presents a methodology to develop and implement a generative design system as the technological model for mass customisation in the furniture industry. The generative design system comprises two subsystems that permit the generation and the evaluation of customised designs within a predefined design language. The shape generation subsystem is defined by shape grammars and parametric design models. The shape evaluation subsystem encompasses simulation and optimisation to guarantee the structural feasibility of the customised designs under operating conditions. This paper focuses on the modelling activities regarding the constitution of the optimisation part of the shape evaluation subsystem. Structural optimisation using simulated annealing is applied to assist the designer in the automatic search for an optimal grammar-based detailed solution. The theoretical model is illustrated by its application to a symbolic mass production problem: Thonet bentwood chairs, which were changed to comply with the mass customisation paradigm.
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