A method helping to define eco-innovative systems based on upgradability

Environmental issues due to emerging markets and rapid development of consumer goods' consumption require a new model to design more sustainable products. While traditional eco-design methods (LCA, Check-lists, Guidelines, DfX tools.) are generally restricted to a local optimization of the product or to macro-rules for defining an environmental strategy, this article presents an eco-innovative method based on product upgradability which is the integration of functional enrichments on the product. Indeed, the integration of upgrades offers new opportunities for facilitating the dissemination of the remanufacturing approach, the dissemination of Product-Service Systems, or for increasing the lifetime of product. This article presents an eco-innovative method based on upgradability consisting in: exploring the potential upgrades of modules - PMoL (SADT activity A4), the potential value network structures for upgradability - VaNS (A3) and the potential serviceable upgrades including eco-learning strategies - SMoL (A5). This method combines then the results PMoL, VaNS and SMoL to form promising Upgradable Modules Scenarios - UpMoS (A6), which are completed by the specification of an associated value network (A7) and the consolidation of eco-usage services and services offers (A8). The final result obtained, Upgradable systems concepts-UpSys are then assessed thanks to a multicriteria approach (A9) considering environmental, economic and user's and stakeholder's attractiveness criteria. To summarize, this method is structured in two rounds. The first round (A3, A4, A5) aims to explore widely the possibilities offered by the upgradability avoiding the complexity of an approach dealing with several parameters simultaneously. The purpose of the second round (A6, A7, A8, A9) is to specify and assess Upgradable systems encompassing the overall results of the exploration. Before performing this work, relevant information needs to be collected for the project (market information, customer segments, technologies, stakeholders, environmental impacts of the current product, etc.) and acceptability domains of upgradable systems have to be analyzed (A1, A2). This paper presents therefore this eco-innovative approach based on five founding principles and answering to the requirements identified in the literature for a good and effective eco-design method. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V