A new approach to end-of-life design advisor (ELDA)

The end-of-life design advisor (ELDA) guides product developers to specify appropriate end-of-life strategies. Previous work led to a classification scheme for identifying suitable product end-of-life strategies early in the design cycle of a broad range of products. The product end-of-life strategies include reuse, service, remanufacture, recycle (disassembly first) and recycle (shred first). ELDA succeeded in prediction of end-of-life strategies in agreement with industry best practices for 89% of the products. This ability to predict strategies enables designers to redesign products that move towards higher levels of reuse. A 'new ELDA' focuses primarily on technical product characteristics with eco-efficiency as a yardstick. Market developments are included through the functionality-time diagrams. This paper presents results from in depth case studies performed in cooperation with various global companies.