Product lifetime

Prince was built 1863 and operated 1864–1936, 1955–1968, 1980-present, a product life of over 150 years, a service life of around 125 years

Product lifetime or product lifespan is the time interval from when a product is sold to when it is discarded.[1]

Product lifetime is slightly different from service life because the latter considers only the effective time the product is used.[1] It is also different from product economic life which refers to the point where maintaining a product is more expensive than replacing it;[2] from product technical life which refers to the maximum period during which a product has the physical capacity to function;[3] and from the functional life which is the time a product should last regardless of external intervention to increase its lifespan.[4]

Product lifetime represent an important area of enquiry with regards to product design, the circular economy[5] and sustainable development.[3] This is because products, with the materials involved in their design, production, distribution, use and disposal (across their life cycle), embody carbon due to the energy involved in these processes.[6] Therefore, if product lifetimes can be extended, the use of energy, embodied in carbon, can be reduced and progress can be made towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Bocken et al.[7] term this "Slowing resource loops" (309, their emphasis). In addition, excessive waste generation has been attributed to short-lived goods and a throwaway society.[8]

In recent years, there has been a growth in academic and policy discussions around product lifetimes. For example, discussion of product lifetimes are an integral part of the European Commission's action plan for the circular economy[9]. In academia, the PLATE (Product Lifetimes and the Environment) Consortium hosts regular conferences and seminars around the topic of product lifetimes and the environment (see: http://www.plateconference.org/). In the business world, the Canadian Kijiji platform's Secondhand Economy Index examines how consumers extend product lifetime through secondhand marketplaces, swapping, donating and renting/leasing/lending/pooling (see: https://www.kijiji.ca/kijijicentral/second-hand-economy/).

This article examines how product lifetimes are defined in the academic literature and discusses how product lifetimes can be measured. A distinction is made between the definition and measurement of actual and expected product lifetimes.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Heiskanen, E. "Conditions for product lifetime extension". National Consumption Research Center. 22.
  3. ^ a b Cooper, T (2010). "The significance of product longevity". In Cooper, T. (ed.). Longer Lasting Products: alternatives to the throwaway society. Farnham: Gower. pp. 3–36.
  4. ^ Cox, Jayne; Griffith, Sarah; Giorgi, Sara; King, Geoff (2013). "Consumer understanding of product lifetimes". Resources, Conservation & Recycling. 79: 21–29. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.05.003. ISSN 0921-3449.
  5. ^ Montalvo, C., Peck, D. and Rietveld, E. (2016). A longer lifetime for products: benefits for consumers and companies (PDF). Brussels: European Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Norman, J.B., Serrenho, A.C., Cooper, S.J.G., Owen, A., Sakai, M., Scott, K., Brockway, P.E., Cooper, S., Giesekam, J., Salvia, G., Cullen, J.M., Barrett, J.R., Cooper, T., Hammond, G.P. and Allwood, J.M. (2016). A whole system analysis of how industrial energy and material demand reduction can contribute to a low carbon future for the UK (PDF). CIE-MAP.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Bocken, Nancy M. P.; Pauw, Ingrid de; Bakker, Conny; Grinten, Bram van der (2016). "Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy". Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering. 33 (5): 308–320. doi:10.1080/21681015.2016.1172124. ISSN 2168-1015.
  8. ^ Packard, Vance (1963). The Waste Makers. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  9. ^ European Commission (2015). Closing the loop - An EU action plan for the Circular Economy. Brussels.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)