2022
,
Mies, Robert
,
Häuer, Martin
,
Hassan, Mehera
Open source hardware (OSH) describes physical products that allow for "anyone to study, modify, produce, and distribute them". While OSH principles aim to support design reuse, recent studies have challenged whether this is properly applied in practice. Therefore, this article delivers an assessment scheme that allows to identify the readiness of OSH designs for reuse. Testing the scheme on OSH ventilator designs collected by the Publnv ventilator project showed overall good usefulness of the scheme and emphasised the need of unambiguous assessment scales based on common standards. Less than two thirds of Publnv's listed projects fulfilled minimum criteria for openness.
2022
,
Weiher, Nils
,
Mies, Robert
,
Senge, Nicolas
,
Gogineni, Sonika
The material intensity and ongoing servitisation of electric mobility highlights the relevance of circular design concepts focussed on reuse, remanufacturing and recycling that contribute to the transition towards sustainable value creation. This paper gives an overview on technology trends that call for the development of an open digital thread (ODT) for electric mobility which is investigated as a tool in a digitalised, connected and collaborative circular economy. Thus, the ODT in our definition connects the stakeholders across all life cycle phases as integrated digital infrastructure of electric mobility. Using open data principles, it is envisaged to enable participation, cooperation and collaboration by creating interoperability based on accessibility and (re)usability of data. Taking a life cycle perspective reveals the potential of knowledge-based decision making to improve the environmental impacts and operational performance of electric mobility. The paper posits a definition for the ODT followed by a brief overview of relevant concepts and technologies for its development. The results of a systematic literature review are presented, to identify the implications of the circular economy for the ODT. These results provide a basis for future research, which should investigate the requirements of data ontologies for the ODT in electric mobility and beyond and the process requirements for a transition towards opening data in a bottom-up approach.