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PLATE 2017 Conference Proceedings | 217
PLATE conference
Delft University of Technology
8-10 November 2017
Product Lifetimes And e Environment
2017 - Conference Proceedings
C. Bakker and R. Mugge (Eds.)
© 2017. Del University of Technology and
IOS Press. All rights reserved. is article is
published online with Open Access by IOS
Press and distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution Non-
Commercial License.
DOI: 10.3233/978-1-61499-820-4-217
Schridde 2014:26-94, Eisenriegler 2016:29-53, Reuß
2015: 27). erefore, the term “planning” not only refers
to objects in which obsolescence occurs, but also active
persons (subjects) which rst trigger this eect through
their deliberate decisions. However, the observation of
defective inkjet printers, bonded batteries, or broken
electrolytic capacitors does not provide an adequate
explanation for the decisions of designers, engineers,
developers, managers and other relevant actors involved
in the product development process to increase or
decrease product lifetimes. In short, shrinking product
lifetimes and product qualities provide no sucient proof
that actors in the product development process take up
intended decisions for planning premature obsolescence.
is paper strives for a dierent perspective, namely the
ex-ante causes of action, the basis for decision making and
the conditional framework for planned obsolescence in
product creation. Later, the paper presents some empirical
evidence on the complex conditions for the planning of
obsolescence in product development processes.
ere a several denitions of planned obsolescence, with a
ere is still a controversial discussion among professional
circles, the media and a broad public community on the
phenomenon of “planned obsolescence”. e explanations
and varieties of planned obsolescence are manifold
and date back until the 1930s, where Bernard London
described it the rst time as an economic concept to
end the currently recession (London 1932). In the last 7
years the concept has emerged as a buzzword in several
discourses on product-related environmental protection
and eco- and circular design aspects. Google Trend
Statistics also is indicating ongoing search requests for
topics related to “planned obsolescence” (Google Trends
2017).
A major part of the public perception and the
obsolescence research is concentrated on product and
material properties, also known as “built-in obsolescence”
of products (Wieser 2016: 156). Especially popular
science books focus on the analysis of product life-time
and durability aspects in product design to postulate
that proven or perceived shortcomings and faults of
products are caused intentionally (ex-post-proofs) and
speak therefore of planned premature obsolescence (i.a.
Abstract
ere is a controversial discussion on the phenomenon of “planned obsolescence”. However,
shrinking product lifetimes and product qualities do not prove that actors in the product
development process take conscious decisions toward premature obsolescence.
Current product faults like exploding batteries in Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 foster the suspicion
that manufacturers are also struggling with unintended product obsolescence. e relevant
question is in which limits the planning of product lifetimes leads to intended and unintended
consequences.
e reasons and intentions behind product features and whether these features are intentionally
at all can just be determined in direct contact with the actors of the product development
processes. e research project LOiPE could establish contacts in strict condence to
development departments of 23 major German companies. e objectives of the survey were
to nd out about the development process in their point of view, its paradigms and their
experience with “planned obsolescence”.
All interviewees assured that when they had to balance cost against lifespan, lifespan always
prevailed.
e allegation of a deliberately intended premature obsolescence was vehemently rejected by all
of them. e limitations through obsolescence are caused by the basis conditions of developing
and producing: rising complexity, increasing speed of innovation cycles and high cost pressure.
ese conditions and their constraints leave little space to single actors of the development
process and to companies. In this sense obsolescence is systemic. So, a perspective towards
more sustainable production and consumption lies in a combination of dierent approaches.
Planned obsolescence
Product development
Longmuss J. and Poppe E.
SUSTAINUM - Institute for Sustainable Economy, Berlin, Germany
218 | PLATE 2017 Conference Proceedings
Longmuss J. and Poppe E. / PLATE (2017) 217-221
Planning for premature and delayed obsolescence
Many denitions explicitly or implicitly postulate that the
planning of obsolescence is aimed solely at the shortening
of product life. ese denitions systematically rule out
that in various cases product planning is aimed at the
exact opposite, namely, the delay of obsolescence in order
to prolong product life-time. Design for repairability,
maintenance strategies, upgradeability, minimum life and
reuseability are all planned product strategies to prevent
premature obsolescence (Oehme et al., 2017).
Although there are many indications that product life-
time in the consumer eld is oen insucient, it is
analytically insucient to restrict the direction of planned
obsolescence only to premature obsolescence. is is
especially true because the product life and the timing
of obsolescence are always estimations. In practice, the
expected product life time may therefore always be not
achieved or exceeded (Figure 1).
Bounded rationality and limits of planning
e term „planning“ is a key word in history and refers
to the idea of achieving goals through rational patterns
of organization. e word combination “planned
obsolescence” comes from a period in which a distinct
planning euphoria prevailed (van Laak 2010: 5). Today’s
and future’s demands on product development are
increasing (Anderl et al. 2012: 8). It is therefore necessary
to question the traditional imagination of “planned
obsolescence” with its tendency to assume a strict form of
product lifecycle planning.
Ironically in the same period when the concept of planned
obsolescence emerged for the rst time, the sociologist
Robert Merton published one of the rst distinct analyses
on: “e Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive
Social Action” (Merton 1936). Later, the political scientist
Herbert A. Simon follows this idea with his concept
of “Bounded Rationality” (Simon 1947). Both authors
presented a basic idea: What if actors take up irrational
decisions that result in non-intended consequences?
dierent bias on the intention of planning and premature
obsolescence. ese include the contributions of Packard
(Packard 1964), Bulow (Bulow 1986), Kreiß (Kreiß
2015), Pope (Pope 2017) and the predominant part of the
public media (cf. Prakash et al. 2016:21). e following
denitions are exemplary for this narrow focus:
“Planned Obsolescence is the production
of goods with uneconomically short useful lives so that
customers will have to make repeat purchases.” (Bulow
1986: 729)
“e objective of planned obsolescence is to
stimulate replacement buying by consumers”. (Guiltinan
2009: 20)
„Among these is the practice of planned
obsolescence, the aim of which is to make manufactured
products prematurely obsolete.” (Pope 2016: 1)
e present denitions are one-dimensional in three
respects and thus not adequate for the description of
planned obsolescence.
Multiple forms of obsolescence
Obsolescence has multiple forms of appearance and is
occurring at all levels of the product life cycle. According
to Granberg and Cooper, there are obsolescences which
act directly on the product and can be called absolute
obsolescence. is includes material wear, technical
causes or missing possibilities for repair and lack of spare
parts or components. ese eects are predominantly in
the domain of the manufacturers, since they have a direct
inuence on the product quality and production processes.
In addition to the absolute obsolescences, Granberg and
Cooper also name the relative obsolescence. ese include
the group of psychological, economic, or functional
obsolescences, or “mind, money, matter” (Cooper 2004:
425). Relative obsolescences are far more subtle than
absolute obsolescences and are a challenge for politics and
research because the causal chains are longer. is can be
illustrated on the following example: If a material defect
leads to the obsolescence of a product, the connection
from eect (obsolescence) to cause (material design) can
be easily identied. In the case of relative obsolescence,
this relation is no longer direct. Why do consumers
choose a new Smartphone, even though their old device
is still working? Here factors such as advertising, technical
progress, general consumption patterns and economic
status oen act side by side at the same time and in
varying intensity.
For political control attempts it is important to note
that relative obsolescence now have a greater impact on
product life than absolute obsolescence (Cooper 2004:
400). For the further scientic discussion on the topic, it
is necessary to dierentiate between the dierent varieties
of obsolescence in the future, and to ask about the actual
inuence of all actors on obsolescence. e one-sided
derivation of planned obsolescence as direct consequence
of the interests of manufacturers or consumers is
insucient.
PLATE 2017 Conference Proceedings | 219
Longmuss J. and Poppe E. / PLATE (2017) 217-221
To date the project could establish contacts in strict
condence to development departments of 23 major
German companies, mainly producing consumer goods,
but also investment goods. Most of the interviews were
led along a semi-structured questionnaire, some in a more
informal atmosphere. All interviews took place without
surveillance through company ocials. Most interviewees
came directly from development and design departments,
sometimes also from quality assurance, research and
marketing. In some cases, we interviewed more than
one person from a company. All in all, we were able to
conduct 28 interviews with insiders usually considered
the “planners of obsolescence” (in the following we will
refer to them as “developers”). All interviewees were
employed in Germany where the products in global scales
tend to have high labour costs and – related to this – a
high standard. erefore, the companies have a reputation
to lose should their products show a high degree of
absolute obsolescence, i.e. the ndings can not necessarily
be generalized globally.
e objectives of the survey were to nd out
• the development process in their point of view,
focusing on the circumstances under which their work
takes place,
• the paradigms that are prevailing in their work, and
• their perspective as “planners of obsolescence”.
As a fundamental of engineering, all technical artifacts
are developed and designed for a certain lifespan
determined in advance. is will be an essential part of
every requirements list of a new product. All interviewees
le no doubt about this. However, contrary to widespread
assumptions, they all agreed that when they had to balance
cost against lifespan, the latter was more important for
their decisions. is paradigm is not unlimited, and is
more likely to be found in the development of expensive
products than of cheap ones, but lifespan prevailed in
all cases. And still, the developers all agreed that their
products not always met the targeted lifespan. ey
named three main reasons for this:
e rst one is the rising complexity of new products. New
features, more options, additional electronic control with
growing numbers of sensors etc. cause interdependencies
that are dicult to overlook. So, the single components
will in most cases be adequate to the requirements.
Nevertheless, the system as a whole might lack stability.
is leads to time constraints as the second reason.
ey are caused by a steadily increasing competition
among companies for innovation leadership, resulting
in a permanent pressure to reduce time to market. So
usually it is the time budget (and not the technical skills
of developers) that limits in-depth-mastery of endurance
of components as well as of interaction of sub-systems.
Since traditional testing is oen too time consuming,
companies rely more and more on short-cycle-testing and
simulation – both leaving a lot of space for uncertainty.
Current product faults like exploding batteries in
Samsungs Galaxy Note 7 (Mozur 2017) foster the
suspicion those manufacturers are also struggling with
problems that lead to unintended product obsolescence.
e assertion that product lifetimes are plannable, does
not exclude the possibility of unintended consequences.
e planning of obsolescence is not a binary decision of
‘yes’ or ‘no’. e relevant question is in which limits the
planning of product lifetimes and obsolescence leads to
intended and unintended consequences.
Planned Obsolescence and it’s 3 Dimensions
Based on the preceding considerations, we propose a
formal and unbiased denition of planned obsolescence,
which is partly based on Hindles formulation (Hindle
2008:147):
Planned Obsolescence (PO) is a strategy in which the
obsolescence of a product is planned and built from its
conception.
a) Form: PO results in absolute or relative obsolescence.
b) Time: PO leads to premature or delayed obsolescence of
the product.
c) Intention: PO has intended and unintended
consequences.
As shown, the intentions leading to proven or perceived
shortcomings and faults of products cannot be derived
directly from product properties. e reasons and
intentions behind product features and whether these
features are intentionally at all can just be determined in
direct contact with the actors of the product development
processes. To establish this contact is one of the main
objectives of the project LOiPE (Langlebigkeit und
Obsoleszenz in der Produktentstehung / Lifetime and
Obsolescence in Product Development). It is funded by
HBS, the foundation of German trade unions and carried
out by Sustainum – Institute for Sustainable Economy
Berlin. e collaboration with trade unions, particularly
with the German Metal Workers Union (IG Metall), eased
direct and unocial access to the actors as a prerequisite
for open and honest answers.
Figure 2. Planned Obsolescence and the 3 Dimensions Form, Time, Intention
(FTI).
220 | PLATE 2017 Conference Proceedings
Longmuss J. and Poppe E. / PLATE (2017) 217-221
it completely out of question. It would collide with their
identity of “engineers as problem solvers”. Moreover, they
indicated that one deliberate weak point in a product
would make all their eorts useless to make other parts
of the product more durable – and the costs of this would
be misspent. On the contrary, they were generally proud
to participate in a quest for good products. All of them
were committed to develop products that were as durable
and functional as possible under the given circumstances.
However, unintended obsolescence is still possible and
taking place, also in their judgement, since the “given
circumstances” are beyond their control and oen also
beyond their company’s control. en it will be the internal
structure of a company as well as market conditions that
determine the lifetime of a product.
!
e limitations of useful life through absolute obsolescence
including the consumption of resources going along
with it are not caused by an intentional weakening of
single components – aiming at fast replacement – but
by the basis conditions of developing and producing:
rising complexity, increasing speed of innovation cycles
including shortened tests and high cost pressure. ese
conditions and their constraints leave little space, if any
at all, to single actors of the development process and to
companies. In this sense obsolescence is systemic.
So, since all single actors in this eld – manufacturing
companies, developers, commerce and customers –
have only very limited options, a perspective towards
more sustainable production and consumption lies in a
combination of dierent approaches:
Changing customer demand, looking more towards
sustainability. ey could e.g. put more emphasis on
simple products that are easy to handle, maintain and
repair, or go for refurbished second hand products or
leasing rather than owning. By this they would open new
business models for producers and commerce.
Changing the legal side so that products for short term
usage become expensive and sustainable products and
manufacturing more protable for companies.
Based on this: developing products whose lifespan
does not end with the rst failure; instead paying more
attention than nowadays on easy maintenance, repair,
refurbishment, and the option to modernize single
modules (which again needs and supports new business
models).
Development of mission statements in companies: „What
kind of enterprise do we want to be and which demands
of customers and society are guiding us?”. is would also
leave more space for the desire of developers to minimize
absolute and premature obsolescence.
is limits the predictability of lifespans and functionality
considerably. Product recalls in the automotive sector are
popular examples for this.
e third reason is cost pressure. Product prizes are
calculated top down, i.e. the marketing or the sales
department explores which type of product, comprising
a list of properties, can be sold at which prize. en
appropriate component prizes and manufacturing costs
are derived from this. is again limits the quality that is
possible under these circumstances.
e core problem of a development process under these
(market) constraints is that each company has just a
very limited leeway in decision-making. erefore,
it can be stated that, as a general rule, the observed
forms of absolute obsolescence emerging from this are
unintentional. It should be remarked that this still leaves a
lot of developers unsatised – they denitely would like to
create better products.
Paradigms of development
As said before, in most development processes durability
of components was said to outweigh the costs. However,
a closer look showed a classical engineering approach:
durability was oen just considered as the time until the
rst failure of the rst component – when it is broken, the
lifetime is over (not in the automotive sector, since cars are
so expensive that upgradeability pays o). So, we asked
for the paradigms commanding the development process.
As gure 3 shows, other aspects that might contribute
to a delayed obsolescence are of far less importance, in
particular upgradeability.
The planner’s point of view
e allegation of a deliberately intended, premature
obsolescence was vehemently rejected by all our
interviewees. ey all agreed that no company and no
engineer would do something like this, they considered
Figure 3: Paradigms of product development.
PLATE 2017 Conference Proceedings | 221
Longmuss J. and Poppe E. / PLATE (2017) 217-221
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