AFFORDABLE MANAGEMENT & MANTEINANCE COSTS
/LONG DURABILITY
To understand the real cost of a product
IT IS NECESSARY TO EVALUATE THE COSTS OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
(consumption, repairs, etc.)
We must consider the use of each type of product in the life of the Customer (eg: household appliance, car): the number of products that the Customer must change has increased up to 1 to 10 compared to a few decades ago.
One of the factors of the real (economic) sustainability of the new generation of products is their management cost which is greatly reduced thanks to the fact that the User is allowed to develop the maintenance and repair operations himself (with the support of Communities Web).
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More specifically the new generation of products must have the following qualities:
■ CONSISTENTLY LESS CONSUMPTION THANKS TO THE RADICAL REFINEMENT OF THE PRODUCT
This quality of a Product is obtained not only with improved technologies,
but above all thanks to a
RADICAL DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE USE OF THE PRODUCT
[see Rule “Radical innovation and not performance improvement”].
That is, today the Product must be able to be used according to the dictates of the new Trends such as Social Impact and Smart Consumerism. We talk about features like
► “recovery” of energy (the “braking” system of new electric cars can be used in many other products, such as in lifts).
And in the
► direct energy production by the Consumer, which becomes Producer-Consumer, as in the cases of Electricity, in which some users can also produce energy that can be included in the grid. An example of product that itself produces the energy it consumes is an electric car with solar panels.
■ DO IT YOURSEF MAINTENANCE/REPAIR
The new dimension of technology also
ENABLES THE USER WITH REGARD TO PRODUCT MAINTENANCE/REPAIR
(until now carried out by “technicians”).
In other words, with the new generation of Products the need to resort to professionals for such interventions is lacking. This is possible thanks to:
► modularity – plug ‘n play –: there is an abandon of integrated products (such as the iMac) and a return to modular Plug n’ Play products (PC)
► self-explicability of the modules and interactive guides connected to each part (each element can have a QR code).
► inserting the product in a collaboration system that allows you to have the support of a user community (it is therefore a “DIY with the support of the Community”).
■ DURABILITY
An important factor in the cost of the product
IS DURABILITY
(robustness, upgradeability and expandability).
Today in evaluating the costs of a product we don’t take into account the very short life span of current products. The problem for the Market is that currently the Consumer, with extremely limited spending due to the crisis, is beginning to require products that last for a long time (in the Smart Manufacturing dimension it is possible to produce highly competitive products that last tens of times compared to the current ones).
It is therefore necessary to abandon the current strategies of planned obsolescence, and begin to develop products with the following characteristics:
● robustness and intrinsic durability of materials and construction.
● characteristics of “evolving products°“: – upgradeability: by changing some parts, as in the PC, the product can be updated – expandability: it is possible to add some components that add new features to the product.
