Design for Longevity - A Framework to Support the Designing of a Product's Optimal Lifetime

Abstract

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.

Linking product design and durability: A review and research agenda

“…There are several approaches based on CE strategies that relate to product design. Some salient examples are design for upgradability ( Xing and Belusko, 2008 ), design for remanufacturing and refurbishing ( Bakker et al., 2014 ; Charter and Gray, 2008 ; Steeneck and Sarin, 2018 ; W. Wang et al., 2017 ), design for use optimization ( Mont, 2008 ), design for repairing ( Cordella et al., 2021 ; W. Wang et al., 2017 ), and design for longevity ( Carlsson et al., 2021 ). Other approaches encompass CE strategies, aiming to provide various alternatives for consideration by designers during early product development phases ( Bovea and Pérez-Belis, 2018 ), while some other approaches focus on measuring and assessing the greenness of extending the lifespan of products ( Alfieri et al., 2018 ; Desing et al., 2021 ; Franklin-Johnson et al., 2016 ; Hagejärd et al., 2020 ).…”

Circular products: the balance between sustainability and excessive margins in design

“…For instance, specifically in the context of product design, den Hollander et al (2017) describe CE as where, "…the economic and environmental value of materials is preserved for as long as possible by keeping them in the economic system, either by lengthening the life of the products formed from them or by looping them back in the system to be reused.". Based on such principles, Circular Product Design or Design for Circular Economy (DfCE) are design approaches that aim to create products with extended lifecycles (Carlsson et al, 2021), reduced waste (Burke et al, 2023), and increased potential for reuse and recycling (Tam et al, 2019). The broadness of the topic has led to many theoretical frameworks.…”

Design For Longevity and Design For X: Concepts, Applications, and Perspectives

“…In principle, Design for Longevity is an effort to extend product life or lifespan [1]. This definition aims to assist product developers in actively considering product longevity when making decisions regarding product design [2]. The definition of Design for Longevity is designed that aims to design products with optimal lifetime, where optimal means considering the perspective of users, business, and resource efficiency when designing the lifetime of a product.…”