While many design methods are developed, tested and reported in the literature, their utilization in industry practice remains low. Design methods are receiving substantial scholarly focus and are considered central to efficiently achieving reliable outcomes in the engineering design process. They are particularly vital as industrial companies increasingly transition to integrated offerings of products and services with a lifecycle perspective, leading to additional uncertainty and complexity. Thus, the presented research aims to support method selection and development, focusing on resource-efficient offerings. This is achieved through an in-depth, practice-centric, empirical study of users’ requirements of design methods and the corresponding characteristics of design methods aimed at meeting these requirements in resource-efficient offerings. Highly relevant insight supporting a broad set of stakeholders is reported. Firstly, the user requirements and method characteristics reported support practitioners seeking to identify a design method fitting their needs. Secondly, academics and practitioners aiming to enhance the usefulness and impact of a design method may benefit from considering these requirements and characteristics during method development. Lastly, the systematic approach taken in this research can be applied by both method developers and potential users to identify additional requirements and corresponding characteristics specific to their conditions. Two use cases for the results attained are reported, focusing on applying the research results for method selection and deriving overall guidelines for developing design methods directed toward resource-efficient offerings.

In an economic paradigm where companies think that more is better and resources are considered infinite, waste, pollution, and environmental degradation are often the result. This can, in turn, be addressed by companies focusing on offerings that are both effective and resource efficient. However, this type of offerings can be more uncertain and complex due to multiple factors such as multiple actors and conflicting objectives taking place at once. Dedicated design support for the relatively new offerings will be helpful for designers in industry. Large and small companies could benefit from the dedicated design support to successfully realize these types of offerings. However, the type of support they might need is not clear. Differences and similarities among large and small companies could guide researchers in providing more reliable support. Therefore, the aim of this research is to present differences and similarities of design support needs among large companies and small and medium enterprises. This is carried out through semi-structured interviews and follow-up meetings. The results show that differences include a formal product realization process for large companies and an informal or no process for smaller ones. Similarities point at design support for better communication and management of their offerings with regard to lead time as well as lifecycle and strategic thinking for decision making. The conclusions highlight the importance for researchers to provide design support that purposefully addresses specific needs.

In the field of Ecodesign, in which the answers to the questions of “why”, “what”, and “how” have been largely studied in the past, the lack of implementation in industry remains an issue. The literature lacks insights into the “how” question combined with “who” for ecodesign implementation. The aim of this paper is to propose a concept for a knowledge holder, called a lifecycle engineer, with specific knowledge that can support a team or organization in the ecodesign process for its more effective implementation. This is achieved first by a literature review using a set of constructs derived from theories of engineering design and transdisciplinary research. Second, by consulting the results from the literature review and the proposal of a lifecycle engineer, through semi-structured interviews, with practitioners from the manufacturing sector. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews shows that the relevant knowledge includes lifecycle analysis, materials and their selection, energy efficiency, legislation, and management. This knowledge was complemented by skills that practitioners thought of as relevant for effective implementation. Moreover, the proposal of a lifecycle engineer, according to most practitioners, was found to be useful. The advantages of a lifecycle engineer include having more focus on ecodesign and the availability of information and staff to drive changes. Caveats include clear benefits against investment for the company, especially for smaller ones, and enough tasks for full-time employment.

Human activities in the form of production and consumption have increased to an all-time high. In many cases, this increase has resulted in environmental problems such as waste and pollution that, in turn, affect our health and way of living. Societies have proposed different measures to address such environmental problems. These range from different waste treatment technologies to alternative business models, policy measures, and lifecycle thinking in the design of products, to mention but a few.

In this research, the focus is on supporting early design activities of what is often called the conceptual design stage with the objective to provide effective and resource-efficient offerings. The early design activities considered here are planning, analysis, and evaluation.

Design researchers have largely supported these three activities with a variety of methods and tools. However, previous research has shown that design support coming from academia has had a low uptake in industry. In this regard, the aim of this research is to propose not only useful but also usable support for design practitioners during the conceptual design stage.

This research is carried out in the manufacturing sector in Sweden, where selected companies expressed an interest in collaborating with academia to address more thoroughly effective and resource-efficient offerings. To better match company needs and research from academia, this research took a pragmatic and cross-disciplinary approach. This research approach, along with literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, workshops, and questionnaires, shows different ways in which support can be made more useful and usable. The main gap addressed here is that the knowledge and the related skills of the user of the support have not been sufficiently explored.

The results include requirements of the user of the support, proposed methods and tools derived from the requirements identified, and, most importantly, the knowledge and skills needed by the user of the support.

The main message of this research is that support could be expanded from methods and tools to include knowledge and skills needed by design practitioners, the users of support. The flow of support from academia to industry could also be reinforced in a two-way flow through a pragmatic and cross-disciplinary approach to first and foremost address design practitioners’ needs.

Mänskliga aktiviteter i form av produktion och konsumtion har aldrig varit högre. Denna ökning över tid har i många fall lett till miljöproblem som avfall och föroreningar, vilka i sin tur påverkar vår hälsa och levnadssätt. För att möta dessa miljöproblem har olika åtgärder föreslagits, som tekniker för avfallshantering, alternativa affärsmodeller, policy och livscykeldesign, för att nämna några.

Fokus i forskningen som presenteras i denna avhandling är på tidiga designaktiviteter, vilka ofta kallas det konceptuella designstadiet och som syftar till att ta fram resurseffektiva erbjudanden. Detta steg behandlas här genom att närmare undersöka designaktiviteterna planering, analys och utvärdering.

Designforskare har till stor del stöttat dessa tre aktiviteter med en mängd olika metoder och verktyg. Emellertid visar tidigare forskning att designstöd från akademin har ett lågt upptag i industrin. Syftet med denna forskning är därför att föreslå ett användbart stöd som också är användarvänlig för utövare under det konceptuella designstadiet.

För att uppnå detta genomförs forskningen inom tillverkningssektorn i Sverige där deltagande företag uttryckt ett intresse av att samarbeta med akademin avseende resurseffektiva erbjudanden. För att bättre matcha företagens behov med forskning från akademin antas en pragmatisk och tvärvetenskaplig strategi. Denna strategi, tillsammans med litteraturöversikter, semistrukturerade intervjuer, workshops och enkäter visar hur stödet i det konceptuella designstadiet kan bli mer användbart och användarvänlig. Den huvudsakliga forskningsluckan som tas upp här är att kunskap och relaterade färdigheter hos användaren av stödet inte har undersökts tillräckligt.

Resultatet ger en beskrivning av kraven på de stöd som användaren behöver, föreslag på metoder och verktyg som baseras på de identifierade kraven och, viktigast av allt, den kunskap och de färdigheter som användaren av stödet behöver ha.

Huvudbudskapet är att stöd kan utvidgas från att omfatta metoder och verktyg till att även inkludera behovet av kunskap och färdigheter hos designutövare, det vill säga användarna av supporten. Stödet från den akademiska världen till industrin kan också förstärkas genom att bli ett tvåvägsflöde som med en pragmatisk och tvärvetenskaplig strategi först och främst adresserar användarens behov.

In Europe there is a common vision to transform the economy into a sustainable one by 2050 which among other changes, calls for companies to address their offerings in a more resource-efficient manner. Therefore, efforts to provide design support namely, methods, guidelines and tools to specifically address natural resources and impact of products and services have been increasing. Moreover, companies of all sizes should integrate environmental concerns as early as possible to select profitable and environmentally sound offerings. However, knowledge of the analysis and evaluation of resourceefficient offerings seems currently insufficient especially with regards to similarities and differences among different company sizes. In this paper, the study of eight case companies: 3 large companies and 5 SMEs, shows how industry addresses the analysis and evaluation of their offerings. Commonalities among SMEs and large companies include decisions made by strategic or managerial boards, the use of mock-ups and project management skills, among others. These findings could help academics in providing relevant, useful and usable support to industry.

This report is a part of deliverables from theMistraREES1programme (www.mistrarees.se) work package (WP)2.1and 2.2 of Project 2 (the project concerning design). The objective of the report is to identify and describe methods and tools used as design support for REES in the Swedish manufacturing industry.

This report presents the results of an analysisto identify different methods and tools used during the early stages of design for REES in manufacturing companies in Sweden. The methods are classified in “as-is”and “to-be”stages. The as-ismethods are what are currently used, and the to-bemethods are what they would like to have in place in the future. The compilation of methods and tools also included other sources of information partly to corroborate results from interviews. These other sources included meeting minutes and internal reports, when available. Other sources are also included from two publications in the academic literature from López-Mesa & Bylund (2011)and Nilsson et al. (2018).

Over the last decade, product/service systems (PSSs) have become a research issue in several disciplines, such as engineering design and marketing. The inherent interdisciplinary nature of this research issue has however remained unexploited. In order to bridge these silos and foster more interaction across relevant disciplines, this research examines PSSs from an interdisciplinary angle by analyzing how engineering design and marketing inform one another, as well as presents insights for PSS design. The research is carried out using a three-stage process for analyzing and evaluating interdisciplinary research: first, through a systematic literature review to identify relevant papers and their level of utilization across disciplines; second, by using a qualitative thematic analysis looking for different perspectives in order to find themes to bridge the gap between the disciplines; and third, by providing a research agenda to advance research by moving from silos to synergy. The results show a limited use of theories, frameworks, methods and tools across disciplines thus far, while the major contribution of this article lies in the implications derived for PSS design for academics and practitioners alike, which are categorized into seven specific themes: business orientation, collaboration, cost aspects, flexibility, performance indicators, requirements and services.

Due to government policies and regulations as well as customer and societal demands, organizations around the world are looking for ways to manage their economic, environmental and social sustainability. One of the most frequently used standards for organizations seeking to manage their environmental responsibilities is ISO 14001. This framework, however, is generic because it can be used by any organization irrespective of sector, activity or core values. Therefore, implementation of generic guidelines might result in the use of alternative tools that respond better to specific organizational needs and that provide outcomes that can be useful for decision-making. Through case study methodology, this paper shows how Volvo Group, a world-leading producer of transport solutions, developed an internal environmental evaluation tool called Environmental Screening (EnvS) to improve the environmental performance of its solutions.

This letter postulated that there is a need to clarify the statement of the journal as a transdisciplinaryplatform. It first provided an understanding of transdisciplinary research based on the literature. Second,it explained why an understanding of transdisciplinarity is important, and how such an understandingwill enhance the research and practice in the topics of the entire journal. Third, taking environmentalsustainability design research as an example subject, it commented on among others six articles publishedin the journal, and showed the relevance of this issue within this example subject. Overall, thisletter is expected to contribute to enhance the quality of the research and practice in the topics of thejournal.