PROMOTING CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN THE EARLY DESIGN STAGES OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Within the framework of Product Life Management, Circular Economy (CE) is an important concept that seeks to design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use and regenerate natural systems. As companies increasingly recognize the benefits of transitioning to a CE, there is a growing need for tools and methodologies to support the design of circular products and services. This thesis presents a Circular Economy Card Deck as a novel approach to facilitate the early stages of product development. The deck consists of 10 cards based on Morseletto's “Targets for a circular economy” work (Piero Morseletto, 2020) that represents mainstream CE principles and strategies and can be used by designers, engineers, and other stakeholders to generate ideas, evaluate options, and make informed decisions. Moreover, this thesis aims at deeper analyze the strong relationship between CE and Additive Manufacturing (AM), a rapidly growing and highly promising manufacturing technology that has attracted significant attention in recent years. The results of a pilot study with design and engineering students (Master level) suggest that the card deck can support the exploration of CE concepts and facilitate the identification of circular solutions. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the potential benefits and limitations of the card deck approach, and its integration into a PLM framework, and gives suggestions for future research.