Product Lifecycle Flow

A theoretical approach on visualising closed-loop systems for the Circular Economy

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

S. van 't Veer Industrial Design Engineering

Contributors

C.A. Bakker Circular Product Design - IDE (mentor)
J.E. Oberdorf (mentor)
Faculty
Industrial Design Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering
Copyright: © 2021 Stijn van 't Veer
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Published Date

11-03-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Abstract

The company introduced their new circular economy objectives for 2025 with the statement that they will close the loop by offering a trade-in on all professional medical equipment and taking care of responsible repurposing. Recycling has the least amount of value according to the circular system diagram of the company which means that a lot of valuable material will be lost in this process. The main goal of this study is to propose a redesign that reduces the total amount of waste and generate more value for the current closed-loop system by 2025. Product X has been taken as a use case throughout this study. A literature study on the Materials Flow Analysis in combination with Sankey’s diagram has been performed to develop a visual representation of the life cycle of Product X. The goal is to provide insight into the End of Life practice of Product X and identify new circular opportunities for the company. The results led to a focus on refurbishment and part harvesting to increase the repurposing value of Product X. The identified obstructions have been rewritten into design challenges which were the guiding principles for the redesign Product X. The redesign of Product X has an optimized architecture that facilitates material reuse up to 82%. Three different business cases have been performed concerning the lifespan of Product X to estimate the potential circular revenue of Product X in time. The results indicated that the early and mid-stage of the redesign are feasible for the current refurbishment process and the late stage of the lifecycle should be dedicated to part harvesting process to capture as much material value as possible. The summarized business case indicates that the current revenue income of the redesign could be increased by 11% of circular revenue if it would be implemented. A final Material Flow Analysis is performed on the redesign of Product X to gain insight on the impact of switching to a strategy like refurbishment that increases the material value for the closed-loop system.