Afterlife: An Essential Guide To Design For Disassembly
by Alex Diener
The iron was on, but the plate was cool to the touch. The realization set in that after two short years of service, the thing was dead.
I remember seeing Granddad fix all sorts of household appliances growing up, tinkering and cursing for hours before yielding a re-functional product. So, I, too, set the iron on my workbench to revive it. Right off the bat, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. All of the screws on the outside had a proprietary head design. After some careful work with a needle nose, they were out, but the plastic shells still wouldn't come apart. I pried with screwdrivers, torqued on handles, pulled on snap fits. After finally getting to the metal base, I found it covered in epoxy. By the time all was said and done, my iron lay in a dozen broken pieces on the counter, and I cursed the work of my profession.
Profoundly frustrated by this experience, I disassembled the same iron once more, documenting each step to illustrate the pain. Armed with the knowledge from my disastrous first try, it was a bit easier, but still took 67 steps to separate 52 parts. Design for Disassembly (DfD) could have prevented this mess.
What is Design for Disassembly?
Design for Disassembly is a design strategy that considers the future need to disassemble a product for repair, refurbish or recycle. Will a product need to be repaired? Which parts will need replacement? Who will repair it? How can the experience be simple and intuitive? Can the product be reclaimed, refurbished, and resold? If it must be discarded, how can we facilitate its disassembly into easily recyclable components? By responding to questions like these, the DfD method increases the effectiveness of a product both during and after its life .....
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