Professor Claudia Eckert
One way to make products more sustainable is to make them more durable. However if well working products meet needs, there is less scope for innovation. This talk takes a closer look at what durability means and places it in the context of other -illities. It argues that durability is not an absolute property of a product, but depends on the relationship that individual users have with specific products. This makes it difficult to manage and assess for manufacturers. Durability manifests differently at levels of system decomposition, which also provides opportunities for innovation.
Dr Claudia Eckert is Professor of Design in the School of Engineering and Innovation at the Open University, the British distance education university. Her research interests lie in understanding and supporting design processes of complex engineering products. Her research combines design theory and philosophy with empirical studies. She has published over 300 papers in international journal and conference proceedings and serves as an area editor for Research in Engineering Design and Design Science. She is an active member of design society, where she served as a member of the board of management and chair of the advisory board, and lead a special interest group on design processes.