Improving the modular structure of a product to facilitate the redesign process: an example for eco-design

Products are continuously redesigned to offer new variants and penetrate new market niches. Changes are often dictated by improvements which are necessary in specific Design Contexts (DC), such as performance, eco-sustainability, assembling, cost, usability. Modularity is a well consolidated approach toward the rapid product reconfiguration and is beneficial to limit the scope of changes to product subsets. However, this consideration needs to be included in the design of the modular structure of a product. The paper introduces the concept of Design Context Module (DCM), as a module implemented in components that will strongly affect a certain DC, letting the designer to restrict the number of the parts to be modified. The approach moves from the traditional modularization based on the functional decomposition and introduces an iterative procedure to refine the DCMs structure. The optimization is driven by the maximization of similarities and dependencies among components of the same module and by indexes expressing the impact of the components on specific DCs. The approach has been tested in the field of the household appliances. The modular structure of a freestanding cooker has been redefined in consideration of redesign activities aiming to improve the eco-sustainability of the product. The application of the approach has led to the identification of few modules characterized by high impacts on the environment.