A Proposal of Design Methodology for Upgradable Products

Abstract

Abstract One of main causes of the environmental issues is the current mass production paradigm. Developing upgradable products is one of the most hopeful approaches for solving these issues, because they will have longer lives, encourage reuse of artifacts, and therefore, create new business chances at later stages of product life cycles. However, design for upgradability has been hardly discussed. This paper proposes a design methodology for upgradable products. First, we clarify the definition of design for upgradability by comparing it with other design strategies. Second, by analyzing data of existing series design, we propose several design patterns and two basic guiding principles; namely, making function independent and making function insensitive. Based on these analyses, a design methodology for upgradability is proposed and a prototype of upgrade design support system is illustrated. Finally, feasibility of the methodology is discussed by applying result of an experimental design to the prototype system.

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