Life Cycle Thinking - A Design Mindset

Focus on sustainability Life cycle This is the first in a special series new viewpoints such as the supply Life cycle thinking encourages a of three articles on product design chain – how it’s distributed, retailed, designer to look more closely at the thinking that covers life cycle thinking, life used and disposed of, all of which interactions over the whole life cycle cycle management and life cycle can present opportunities for a beyond the most obvious customer – a design assessment tools. These articles designer to make a contribution. The (the end consumer) to those that introduce these subjects from a emergent fields of experience and interact with it over its life. mindset New Zealand design perspective service design leverage the product A collaborative project and provide some insight into how system to improve how we interact with Locus Research and Scion they can be applied practically and and deliver the product. investigated exterior cladding in strategically by designers. The aim the New Zealand market. The first of these articles and following series approach was to roughly sketch Words Timothy Allan of workshops (listed overleaf) is to Examples a life cycle and then attribute the enable you to adopt the principles of A good example of this type of users to phases of the product life life cycle thinking and initiate change thinking was an investigative design cycle. Architects were pre-purchase, within your organisation. project in collaboration with Locus builders were pre-purchase and Research, Lightweight Medical and installation, and end consumers had the British Environment Partnership some involvement in the first two Core function (BEP) in the UK. When looking at phases, along with the life of the Any product, no matter how simple, the potential replacements for the product through to disposal. exists within a system. A product ubiquitous hospital anti-infection Builders were very interested in system incorporates the require- screen (the curtain that separates installation factors, whereas this did ments, users, material inputs and hospital beds), the team defined not concern the end user at all; their outputs over the course of its life. the core function of the product main concern was weather-tightness ‘Life cycle thinking’ (LCT) seeks as the ‘provision of anti-infection and appearance. Installation became to understand, interpret, and design protection for the patient over a a critical product improvement the life of a product. It is system period of seven years’. This was for the subsequent product oriented rather than object oriented based off the existing cotton screen development as the builder was able and provides a platform for product washed twice a year for seven years to influence consumers through their innovation by providing a new lens to and then disposed of. In high risk advice (and regularly did so). look at the product. wards the consumption is double. Life cycle thinking in product A principle starting point for The approach was to design development provides an life cycle thinking is the concept eight different life cycles (product effective platform for integrating of defining the core function of a systems) these included smart environmental factors. It is product. An example I like to use fabrics, powered sterilisation, important to build it in so that it is that is appropriate for New Zealand, recycled plastic fibre. Life cycle not dispensible and viewed as an is the development of a new milk thinking enabled the team to ‘extra’. There are two predominant bottle. Instead of just designing the unshackle itself and be really types of environmental assessment: bottle (albeit a stylish one) we would creative whilst providing credible ‘change oriented’ and ‘accounting’. look at the ‘delivery of milk’ as this alternatives that both improved the As designers are generally not is the single most vital role of the product and had the potential to inclined to like accounting, change bottle whether its plastic, glass or reduce its environmental impact. oriented assessments are better card, delivered or picked up from the With most products there are suited to our workflow and focus dairy or the supermarket. usually several customers that will on areas where you can make www.locusresearch.com This simple pivot provides us with have a say on the product’s success. legitimate improvements. Issue 94 69

Download tools of Environmental Aspects (IoEA) through the product without the Most of the tools Locus Research technique used by ecologists. It distortion of the life cycle and can uses to assess and design are outlines the routine inputs and be a useful perspective. This is also a amalgams of several other outputs and where they occur in the handy preparation for a quantitative techniques. Soft ware tools that life cycle of a product and is a simple environmental assessment using offer high level all-encompassing way to qualitatively examine the LCA (which we will deal with in article analysis should be approached product life cycle. three of this series). with caution, unless they have been *The MET Matrix (Materials, These three techniques are tailored to your organisation and Energy and Toxicity) is useful for simple, effective and free and they your production context. providing an overview and enables encourage a more holistic view that Timothy Allan is the founder of Simple tools enable transparent you to separate material inputs, is not limited to creating sustainable Locus Research, in Tauranga. and effective mechanisms to energy inputs and emission (toxicity) products. There are many others To learn more about sustainable consider and communicate the out and place them into the broad which are equally useful. product design processes, check out our series of three half-day product life cycle, whilst preparing phases of the product life. Life cycle thinking creates workshops on Life Cycle Thinking a design team for more rigorous *Material and Energy Flow benefit and can improve the (details opposite) at Unitec in environmental assessment that is diagrammes are another effective experience users and consumers Auckland on the following dates: required downstream. means of analysing and comparing have with a product through A very useful simple method scenarios. One of the benefits of this strategic design thinking. June 12: Life Cycle Thinking July 3: Life Cycle Management we apply to initial assessments approach is that it provides a view *Download the free templates August 7: Life Cycle Tools is an evolution of the *Impacts of the flow of energy and materials from www.locusresearch.com 70 Issue 94

Life Cycle Thinking - A Design Mindset

by Locus Research on Jul 05, 2009

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Life Cycle Thinking - A Design Mindset — Document Transcript