Appunti Product and asset lifecycle management

The impacts are expressed using the reference unit, kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene equivalent (1,4-

DB), and are measured separately for impacts of toxic substances on:

- Fresh-water aquatic ecosystems

- Terrestrial ecosystems

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variety of life. Ecological biodiversity is the diversity of ecosystems, natural

communities and habitats. In essence, it’s the variety of ways that species interact with each

other and their environment. It is measured using the number of species.

Land use

Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment of wilderness

into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields,

pastures, and managed woods. It also has been defined as the total of arrangements,

activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type.

Circular economy

You have to think about your product in a circular way: the raw material you acquire enters

into a circle starting from the design phase. 80% of the impact of a product relies in the design

phase. Once you understand which problem your customer has to solve, you analyse how to

solve it and start designing it. If I market products and produced by other suppliers, I cannot

control the impact due to the production phase, but I can try to control the following phase.

The next big thing in design is circular.

In a manufacturing context in which, as seen, there is an increasing awareness on the need of

undertaking more responsible actions, circular economy is an emerging paradigm that is

gaining the attention of governments and organizations across the world, being widely

considered ad promising concept that allows a more sustainable development in a changing

socio-economic world.

- Linear model: take – make – dispose

- Circular model: take – make – recycle

The circular economy aims to eliminate waste through the superior design of materials,

products, systems and business models, improving the reuse of products and the recycling of

materials.

Understand an everyday product by exploring the system it is part of. Imagine how both could

be redesigned to be in accordance with the circular economy and its three principles:

- Design out waste and pollution

- Keep products and materials in use

- Regenerate natural systems

Circular economy principles

Design out waste and pollution

Keep products and materials in use

To use raw materials in a sustainable manner, it is important to use recycled materials

whenever possible, rather than using new (virgin) resources for each new product.

Making new materials out of recycled raw materials generally requires far less energy. It also

reduces the amount of waste that needs to be processed, or which might end up as litter.

Regenerate natural systems

What’s the diOerence between regeneration and restoration?

- Restoring. Ecosystems are not static – you can’t return an ecosystem to its original

condition like you can with a painting or a vintage radio. Since we can not restore, we

regenerate.

- Regenerative. Answer the question of how activities like agriculture, land development,

and transportation can be designed to harmonize with and support local natural

systems.

Sustainable lifecycle

- Since 80% of all environmental impacts of a product during its lifecycle originate in its

design phase.

- Priority products placed on the Union market are ‘eco-designed’ with a view to

optimising resource and material eOiciency.

- This should include addressing product durability, reparability, re-usability,

recyclability, recycled content and product lifespan. Products should be sustainably

sourced and designed for re-use and recycling.

Circular economy

Circular economy approaches ‘design out’ waste and typically involve innovation throughout

the value chain.

- Reducing the quantity of materials required to deliver a particular service.

- Lengthening products’ useful life (durability).

- Reducing the use of energy and materials in production and use phases.

- Reducing the use of materials that are hazardous or diOicult to recycle in products and

production processes (substitution).

- Creating markets for secondary raw materials (recycled) materials.

- Designing products that are easier to maintain, repair, upgrade, remanufacture or

recycle.

- Developing the necessary services for consumers in this regard (maintenance/repair

services, etc.)

Why environmental criteria

From up, sustainability is defined by law. But this aspect is something that can not be used in

a competitive way. That’s why bottom up aspect consists in deciding to be more sustainable

as a voluntary choice, and this represent a competitive aspect.

Top down aspect:

- Institutional decision with legislation and targets

- European directive

- Regulations

Bottom up aspect:

- Costs reduction

- Competitiveness (pulled strategy or pushed strategy)

- Environmental awareness.

Mandatory regulations

Voluntary schemes

Some regulations are voluntary. Depending on which kind of certification you want to achieve,

you have to work on diOerent stages of product life.

Why should I spend more money to comply a rule that is not mandatory? Because I’m

convinced that being more sustainable than the others will produce me extra money.

Eco Design Directive

The last EcoDesign Directive has been released in July 2025 and will start to be applied in

January 2026.

The EcoDesign directive provides consistent EU-wide rules for improving the environmental

performance of products, such as household appliances, information and communication

technologies or engineering. The directive sets out minimum mandatory requirements for the

energy eOiciency of these products. This helps prevent creation of barriers to trade, improve

product quality and environmental protection.

Shops like Alibaba skip these checks because their whole supply chain takes part outside

Europe, so they can be sold in Europe with far lower prices even though they’re not compliant

with EU regulation.

The EU eco-design established a framework under which manufacturers of energy-using

products (or better energy-related products) are obliged to reduce the energy consumption

and other negative environmental impacts occurring throughout the product life cycle. It is

complemented by the Energy Labelling Directive.

Directive 2005/32/EC

Directive 2009/125/EC

A major goal of the directive is to improve the energy eOiciency of ErPs and thereby contribute

to eOorts to reach European targets for climate protection. The directive, however, does not

only cover the energy use of products but rather aims to reduce the overall negative

environmental impact of the products under consideration.

Parameters for product - predicted consumption of materials,

of energy and of other resources such

as fresh water.

- Anticipated emission to air, water or

soil.

- Anticipated pollution through physical

eOects such as noise, vibration,

radiation, electromagnetic fields.

- Expected generation of waste

material.

- Possibilities for reuse, recycling and

recovery of materials and/or of energy.

- Weight and volume of the product;

- Use of materials issued from recycling activities;

- Consumption of energy, water and other resources throughout the life cycle.

The scope is that my product has a certification or 2 that I can show that my product is better

than the others for lower consumption of energy. I’m this case I’m reducing the impact of my

product on the environment during its use, that is, at the beginning of the life.

Project work

(New) Product Development (NPD) Process

Product development process

Product planning

Definition: the product planning identifies the portfolio of products to be developed by an

enterprise and the timing of their introduction to the market.

We don’t have to think just about 1 thing but we have to present a portfolio.

The process:

Opportunity identification

In NPD, opportunity is an idea for new product.

Types of opportunity:

Sources of opportunity:

In most cases it’s the designer himself that thinks about way of improving the performance of

a product.

Evaluate and prioritize projects

Four basic perspective:

1. Competitive strategy

2. market segmentation

3. technological trajectory

4. product platforms

competitive strategy

market segmentation

Technological trajectory – xerox example

Product platforms

Technology roadmap – Xerox example

Allocate resources and plan timing

Resources:

Estimate the resource demand over time (ex. Mechanical Design needed at Year 1, for each

platform, resource demand vs capacity).

Project timing:

- timing of product introductions

- technology readiness

- market readiness

- competition

mission statement (contains):

- product description

- benefit proposition

- key business goal

- primary market

- secondary markets

- assumption and constraints

- stakeholders

Concept development

Concept development: is the phase where the needs of the target market are identified,

alternative product concepts are generated and evaluated, and one or more concepts are

selecting for further development and testing.

Concept: a concept is a description of the form, function, features, technology of a product

that is usually accompanied by a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products,

and an economic justification of the project.

Identify customer needs

Needs are problem that customers intend to solve with the purchase of a good or service.

Needs are product independent. Specifications are product dependent. A need is any

attribute of a potential product that is desired by the customer.

DiOerent kind of needs – The Kano Model

Steps:

0. Define the scope: mission statement

1. Gather raw data: interviews, focus groups, observation

2. Interpret raw data: need statements

3. Organize the needs: hierarchy

4. Establish importance: surveys, quantified needs

5. Reflect on the process: continuous improvement

gather and interpret raw data: capture “what, not how”

à - Meet customers in the use environment

- Collect visual, verbal, and textual data

- Props will stimulate customer responses

- Interviews are more eOicient than focus groups

- Interview all stakeholders and lead users

and interpret raw data in the digital era

àgather

- (Big) Data comes from sensors, IoT products and social networks.

- Interpret raw data means apply suitable models and statistical analysis to uncover

hidden patterns, correlations and other insights.

- Big Data analytics helps organizations to identify new opportunities and to give

customers what they want.

Concept development

From customer needs to... attributes

- Attribute is a characteristic of a produ