Lifecycle-first design

Most products today are designed around the assembly line and the first sale, with planned or at least accepted obsolescence built in. A familiar example is the modern smart TV: over a few years it gets slower to start up and slower to load apps. The display panel and core hardware might have a physical life of ten years or more, but software support, apps and connectivity often become obsolete much sooner. That is partly because support is dropped after a relatively short window, and partly because the electronics are often specified to be only just good enough for the present moment, with no real headroom for what comes next. As services update, the product grinds to a halt long before the hardware is physically worn out. It is difficult to argue that this is a sustainable way to design products.

Lifecycle-first design means that servicing, repair, upgrades and end-of-life are core design requirements, not afterthoughts. The primary aim is to design machines that can be kept economically productive for as long as the core structure and components still have useful life in them.

That means making machines easy to repair and service from the outset, using components and layouts that can be diagnosed and replaced quickly, and avoiding sealed-for-life assemblies wherever practical. The aim is to reduce whole-life cost and downtime, not just tailpipe emissions. Sustainable design means accounting for the whole lifecycle — from materials and manufacturing to upgrades and end-of-life — and backing that up in how the product is actually engineered, rather than relying on built-in obsolescence to drive the next sale.

We’re also moving away from traditional hard-to-manage hydraulic systems wherever it makes sense, and towards more efficient, controllable electric actuation. By using electric linear actuators instead of conventional hydraulic cylinders in key areas, we can reduce energy losses, remove the need for large volumes of hydraulic oil and simplify maintenance routines.

End-of-life is part of the brief from day one. We’re thinking about how major sub-assemblies can be remanufactured, upgraded or recycled, and how materials and fasteners can support that, rather than locking value into a machine that has to be scrapped. Take the steelwork: a well-designed chassis and boom can have thirty years of useful life, so instead of throwing that away we want to bring machines back to the factory, disassemble them and give them a completely new lease of life with upgraded systems built onto the same core structure.