The role of Service Design in the alignment of the PuzzlePhone with the Circular Economy
Santacreu, Alejandro (2020)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060316651
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060316651
Tiivistelmä
The goal of this portfolio thesis is to reveal how Service Design can be used to align the typically complex stakeholder map around the R&D of complicated consumer electronics products like the PuzzlePhone: the modular smartphone sponsored by the European Commission to become an open industrial standard. The PuzzlePhone’s specifications make possible a business plan that enables said stakeholders to transition from linear into circular economy models and consumption patterns. Moreover, this thesis exposes how Service Design helps to visualize and communicate, effectively and efficiently, how the product fits into the narrative of Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) use cases, while its associated requirements remain technically and financially feasible by using mostly Commercial Off-The-Shelve parts (COTS).
Service Design played a key role in guiding Circular Devices Oy efforts – the Finnish company behind the PuzzlePhone and its subsequent PuzzleCompatible open standard – towards the creation of a celebrated and multi-awarded solution for the increasing challenge of electronics waste (e-waste). According to many experts and regulators planned obsolescence is one of the main causes of e-waste. Circular Devices serviceable smartphone simultaneously becomes the de facto open standard for the industry, while it creates additional revenue streams for suppliers, customers, clients, end-users, and recyclers thanks to its HaaS angle, rooted in the Service Design mindset. Consequently, this thesis relies not only on the extensive market re-search conducted by Circular Devices team, a crew of international experts from more than eight different nationalities, but on the common knowledge base of their accumulated collective experience of more than two hundred years in product development, business development, eco-design, entrepreneurism, and communication.
Circular Devices crew combined Human-Centred Design, Eco-design, and New Product Development techniques, among other tools, to research and develop the modular smartphone standard sponsored by the European Commission through a Horizon 2020 research project. The five publications featured at this portfolio thesis provide, when combined, an accurate description of the impact of their work, and a partial dissection of their methodology. This thesis provides the missing perspective by exposing how Service Design guided the inventor of the PuzzlePhone, and founder of Circular Devices, to successfully assist his team in their endeavours, and how serviceable products can be much more than disposable consumer goods. Under the light of the author’s appreciation on how Service Design was always at the heart of his analytical and decision-making processes there is a rationale that debunks the typical arguments used by the industry against any spurious attempt to regulate the so-called planned obsolescence. Service Design is the catalyzer revealing that there is real and untapped value in longer lifespans awaiting to be discovered by those users and corporates willing to evolve into the only possible outcome: a sustainable future.
Service Design played a key role in guiding Circular Devices Oy efforts – the Finnish company behind the PuzzlePhone and its subsequent PuzzleCompatible open standard – towards the creation of a celebrated and multi-awarded solution for the increasing challenge of electronics waste (e-waste). According to many experts and regulators planned obsolescence is one of the main causes of e-waste. Circular Devices serviceable smartphone simultaneously becomes the de facto open standard for the industry, while it creates additional revenue streams for suppliers, customers, clients, end-users, and recyclers thanks to its HaaS angle, rooted in the Service Design mindset. Consequently, this thesis relies not only on the extensive market re-search conducted by Circular Devices team, a crew of international experts from more than eight different nationalities, but on the common knowledge base of their accumulated collective experience of more than two hundred years in product development, business development, eco-design, entrepreneurism, and communication.
Circular Devices crew combined Human-Centred Design, Eco-design, and New Product Development techniques, among other tools, to research and develop the modular smartphone standard sponsored by the European Commission through a Horizon 2020 research project. The five publications featured at this portfolio thesis provide, when combined, an accurate description of the impact of their work, and a partial dissection of their methodology. This thesis provides the missing perspective by exposing how Service Design guided the inventor of the PuzzlePhone, and founder of Circular Devices, to successfully assist his team in their endeavours, and how serviceable products can be much more than disposable consumer goods. Under the light of the author’s appreciation on how Service Design was always at the heart of his analytical and decision-making processes there is a rationale that debunks the typical arguments used by the industry against any spurious attempt to regulate the so-called planned obsolescence. Service Design is the catalyzer revealing that there is real and untapped value in longer lifespans awaiting to be discovered by those users and corporates willing to evolve into the only possible outcome: a sustainable future.