Designing Immortal Products: A Lifecycle Scenario-Based Approach

Abstract

Immortal products are updated and upgraded to go from application to application and, in so doing, to extend their life as long as possible. Designing such products is the key to a sustainable society from the circular economy perspective. It is a new way of designing that must be supported by engineering tools to be deployed in companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) included. The implementation of circular loops and the associated industrial systems are very dependent on the contexts and life scenarios of the products. Thus, depending on the products to be re-circulated, the processes controlled, and the actors involved, the requirements to be reported at design level are very diverse. This paper proposes a new design method based on lifecycle scenarios to be analyzed and designed. Supported by classical engineering tools that has been adapted for circular economy (CE) context, the lifecycle model enables simultaneous design of businesses, products and services and the evaluation of their environmental values. Three industrial design cases showing the application of engineering tools for implementation of CE lifecycle scenarios are presented.

Literature Review by Scientometric Methods on the Impact of the Circular Economy on Sustainable Industrial Products

“…In the context of new product development (NPD), managers should be aware that future clients must be involved in NPD for CE efforts to succeed because they are the most prominent stakeholders in this sector, and consuming habits are the biggest obstacle to NPD based on CE principles [21][22][23]. D. Evrard et al [24] proposed an engineering design method that combines technology, business and environmental concerns with legacy tools to design, select and validate CE industrial scenarios.…”

“…Other methods that combine material flow analysis, such as material circularity indicators and life cycle assessment indicators, comprise an approach for the evaluation of the global environmental performance, and studies showed that the outcome of eco-design was an approximately 50% reduction in the manufacturing phase [19,20]. D. Evrard et al [24] proposed an engineering design method that combines technology, business and environmental concerns with legacy tools to design, select and validate CE industrial scenarios.…”

Design, Materials, and Extrusion-Based Additive Manufacturing in Circular Economy Contexts: From Waste to New Products

“…Within this framework, designers play a crucial role in the implementation and development of these approaches. Therefore, a new set of interdisciplinary skills is required to foster this transition and build a methodology for circular design [7,[10][11][12]. As a matter of fact, the early stages of design strongly influence the impacts of a product during its life cycle, and designers should be not only aware of it but also properly trained [13,14].…”