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DESIGN FOR LONGEVITY - A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT THE DESIGNING OF A PRODUCT'S OPTIMAL LIFETIME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Simon Carlsson ,
Adam Mallalieu ,
Lars Almefelt  and
Johan Malmqvist
Simon Carlsson
Affiliation:
Chalmers University of Technology
Adam Mallalieu*
Affiliation:
Chalmers University of Technology
Lars Almefelt
Affiliation:
Chalmers University of Technology
Johan Malmqvist
Affiliation:
Chalmers University of Technology
*
Mallalieu, Adam Mattias, Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Industrial and Materials Science, Sweden, adammal@student.chalmers.se

Abstract

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Extending the lifespan of products and parts is seen as a solution in the transition towards a circular economy. There are many proposed design approaches argued to facilitate this. However, extending the lifespan of products and parts is not always desirable, and product developers should instead strive to design for a specific longevity; the product's optimal lifetime. The latter in turn depends on many various contextual factors, and this paper has identified the three main contextual factors as; the user, the business, and the resource efficiency. Considering these three appropriately can help product developers to define their product's optimal lifetime. Altogether, these components promote the mindset of Design for Longevity. Specifically, as extracted from this paper: “Design for Longevity aims at designing products with an optimal lifetime, where optimal means taking the user, the business and the resource efficiency perspectives into account when designing the life of a product”. A Design for Longevity framework is proposed and evaluated in this paper, and it is concluded that the proposed Design for Longevity framework can support product developers to implement the Design for Longevity mindset.

Keywords

Circular economyDesign for X (DfX)Optimal product lifetimeDesign for LongevitySustainability
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 1003 - 1012
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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