8 Ways PLM Can Support Circularity Concepts for Product Development

Key Components of a Circular Product Development Model—Process, Lifecycle Extension, and Service:

Process

• Circular value chain: Closing the loop along the full value chain is the goal of production cycles. Using only renewable, recyclable, or biodegradable materials in subsequent lifecycles will reduce costs, improve predictability, and increase control.
• Recovery and collection including industrial collaboration: With an emphasis on production and consumption, everything that was previously regarded as waste is retained for other uses through tracing and recovering products at end of life. Another aspect of this is the reuse of waste and byproducts from the manufacturing process and incentive-based return programs. Both upcycling (into products of greater value) and downcycling (into products of lower value) can be a part of the recycling process.

Lifecycle Extension

• Durability, and modularity with repair services: By maintaining and enhancing products through repair, upgrade, refurbishment, or remarketing, the life of products can be extended with an improved design process that places a focus on design for disassembly, material selection for durability, or design for repair.
• Personalization, made-to-order, and support: A more tailored, long-term customer relationship is desired to close the loops, use the least number of materials/products, recycle them, and reduce resource usage. It provides a clearer understanding of the user’s new business requirements and the possible demand for the product itself.

Service

• Product service system and dematerialized services: The total cost of ownership is assumed by the maker or retailer, forcing attention to be paid to product usability, reusability, durability, longevity, and reliability.
• Collaborative/sharing economy: With the help of digital technology, consumers and businesses can form new connections and take advantage of new possibilities to rent, share, trade, or borrow unused resources.²

Laying the foundation for sustainability success

Companies can benefit from these four broad circular economic action items as part of their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy and efforts. They include near-term stimulus, long-term economic growth, and renewal.

1. Set directions and targets: Articulate high-level goals that represent your dedication to a more circular economy and sustainable future. Integrate this agenda with other plans (like an industrial or digital strategy) and track progress using metrics.
2. Create enablers and remove barriers: Use resources like product standards, revised regulations, and better transparency to address multiple nonfinancial barriers to the European Union’s (EU) transition to a circular economy.
3. Make the economics work: Identify lead markets, level the playing field through trade policy, taxation, or other measures, and stimulate demand through quotas, content, and standards.
4. Pursue long-term value: Establish a coherent circular economy policy framework: A significant portion of the circular economy’s potential cannot be triggered by one-time rescue packages or government involvement. A thorough and organized policy framework to address barriers and gradually change the economic case is still extremely relevant for much of the circular economy transition.³

8 Ways PLM Helps Create a More Circular Economy and Drives Business Benefits:

1. Improves product development activity by streamlining processes, reducing scrap and rework, improving innovation, and reducing time-to-market for new products.
2. Shortens the time to volume and maximizes the reuse of products by enabling collaboration between design and supply chain teams.
3. Allows businesses to reduce product-related costs and waste by focusing on part reuse. PLM can help to avoid sourcing new parts that are functionally similar to other parts already in inventory.
4. Gives transparency about what is happening across products and teams.
5. Offers greater insight into customers’ use of products through direct access to customer feedback.
6. Maximizes a product’s value throughout its lifecycle. By adjusting various strategies as the product progresses through its lifecycle (using data/information based on customer feedback about product performance as it matures), PLM can help extend the product’s lifespan.
7. Promotes better collaboration between customers, suppliers, and remote teams. Cloud PLM enables access to product lifecycle information anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Cloud services also deliver quick deployment, unlimited storage capacity, and scalability.
8. Ensures products are sustainable by design with visibility to sustainable sourcing information and that no more material than is physically necessary is used to create the best design.⁴