Sustainable designs can ensure longevity by providing durable products with more comprehensive usage flexibility over longer durations. A key factor in extending life cycles is expanding the scope of repair for personal and domestic appliances. Disassembly should be keyed into the design philosophy to ensure user-friendly avenues for repairing, repurposing, and remanufacturing devices across their lifetime. Disassembly-based models can also provide flexibility in usage so that products remain relevant and valuable for longer. Configuring repair configurations into the mechanical design process can further lead to the development of increasingly efficient assembly procedures.
Improving designs for energy efficiency can also ensure longevity. Since the heat generated in electronic casings often results in early malfunctioning, designing equipment for better thermal efficiency can significantly enhance life expectancy and system reliability. Improved cooling technologies and additional miniaturization are critical for achieving this.
Partial-update mechanisms, where only sections of a product are refurbished for periodic updates instead of rendering the entire device obsolete, can also extend the useful lives of individual device models and prevent them from entering the waste stream prematurely. Moreover, manufacturing products where the partial failure of a single feature does not void the device’s entire utility can also lead to more sustainable outcomes.