Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 June 2023
Global resource consumption is steadily rising. One option for stopping this upward trend is to reduce material consumption in general. With economics built for growth, this is not a practical path to pursue. Another recently explored alternative is the paradigm shift from a linear economy to a circular economy. The most common concept among practitioners and academics comprises the 6R's: Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, and Recycle. In addition to business cases and supply chains that have been adapted to the circular economy, the products themselves must be circular. Developers face the challenge of developing novel products without appropriate experience from previous tasks.
This paper takes up the challenge of gathering relevant methods in the context of circular product development. A classification with regard to the required input data and use case shall help users effectively and efficiently find development methods suitable for their given development task. With the categorization via a product development framework it is pointed out in which phase existing methods support users and where a lack of support occurs.