Development of a diagnostic tool for product circularity: a redesign approach

Abstract

The design of circular products is gaining relevance among academics, practitioners, and industry as a critical step to face material scarcity, the unsustainability of industrial processes, and excessive waste generation. Therefore, product design is a powerful research field to promote material, component, and product circularity throughout several lifecycles. However, there is a lack of formal methods to measure the circularity of products, especially from the early design stages. Therefore, this paper proposes a diagnostic tool for measuring circularity, identifying potential improvement opportunities, and redesigning interventions in the conceptual design phase. The tool consists of eight single indicators that measure disassemblability, reassemblability, durability, modularity, simplicity, standardization, commonality, relative costs, and the number of secondary functions of products. A case study is presented to validate the tool, considering several improvement scenarios around the 6R strategies. Finally, a list of redesign interventions for each improvement scenario was assembled as a primary output of the proposed tool.