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Repair & Upgrade: Learning Resource

This document discusses strategies for designing products to be more easily repaired and upgraded. It notes that repair and upgrade can help address e-waste by extending a product's useful life. The most important considerations are having a modular product design that allows components to be easily swapped out, as well as easy access to components likely to fail or need maintenance. A modular design also facilitates future upgrades by allowing new technologies to be incorporated. The goal is to design products that are flexible and durable enough to match the pace of technological change.

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Trevor G. Samaroo
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53 views1 page

Repair & Upgrade: Learning Resource

This document discusses strategies for designing products to be more easily repaired and upgraded. It notes that repair and upgrade can help address e-waste by extending a product's useful life. The most important considerations are having a modular product design that allows components to be easily swapped out, as well as easy access to components likely to fail or need maintenance. A modular design also facilitates future upgrades by allowing new technologies to be incorporated. The goal is to design products that are flexible and durable enough to match the pace of technological change.

Uploaded by

Trevor G. Samaroo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LEARNING RESOURCE

Repair & Upgrade

INTRODUCTION

Products like electronics have components that can fail, or need This isn’t a new idea: until recently, almost everything was
to be upgraded, well before the rest of the product needs to be designed to be repaired. Materials and energy are used to make
replaced. Millions of pounds of electronics are scrapped every each thing we manufacture, and so making things last longer has
year. Repair and upgrade can address this e-waste problem by a real environmental benefit.
extending your product’s useful life and slowing down the rate of
disposal.
USE A MODULAR APPROACH

PRODUCT AND USER FOCUS No matter how easy your product is to repair, it’s hard to keep it
from becoming obsolete as new technologies roll out. You can
The most important things for designing for repair and upgrade is intervene by designing your products to be easy to upgrade. One
a clear design intent and an understanding of user behavior. key approach is to use a modular product architecture that makes
it easy to swap out components. This gives users flexibility and
Repair and upgrade is easier when your product’s components allows for product extensions you can’t even see coming yet.
are easier to disassemble and access. It’s most important to
allow easy access to the components most likely to break or need Clear instructions are very helpful, but it’s also important to think
maintenance. about how someone could make sense of your design without
detailed instructions.

| academy.autodesk.com IMPROVING PRODUCT LIFETIME: REPAIR & UPGRADE

p. 1

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