Conceptualizing ReX for aggregating end-of-life strategies in product development

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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Conference article in proceedings
Date
2015
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
6
639-644
Series
22nd CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering 2015, Procedia CIRP, Volume 29
Abstract
Efforts towards a circular economy are accelerating and gaining more attention. Since product's lifecycle is mostly determined during early product development phases, it is crucial to support those phases with explicit strategic directions. This paper examines the possibility to aggregate various definitions of end-of-life (EoL) strategies in a visually compelling way. We propose a taxonomy for communication between multidisciplinary product development teams using ReX, an abbreviation for alternative EoL strategies starting with prefix 'Re', such as reduce, reuse, repurpose, repair, remanufacture, recycle, and recover. We construct our taxonomy based on a) EU Waste Directive, b) a systematic literature review, and c) relevant theoretical constructs. Then we discuss whether ReX allows assessing potential EoL alternatives, and steering the product development efforts. Finally, we suggest ReX for supporting decision-making when several stakeholders are involved, common language is sought for, and significant EoL related decisions are made at the early phases.
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Keywords
Decision-making, End-of-life, End-of-life strategies, Product development, Recover, Recycle, Reduce, Remanufacture, Resynthesize, Reuse
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Citation
Sihvonen , S & Ritola , T 2015 , Conceptualizing ReX for aggregating end-of-life strategies in product development . in S Kara (ed.) , 22nd CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering 2015 . Procedia CIRP , vol. 29 , Elsevier , pp. 639-644 , CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering , Sydney , Australia , 07/04/2015 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2015.01.026