Qualitative data analysis in product development: An exploration of closed loop thinking in product requirements

As a reaction to resource scarcity and a growing conscience for environmental justice, closing product loops and thus eliminating land-filling or other product-dead ends where possible becomes a task that many disciplines work on solving today. The most influential among those disciplines are the ones that mainly determine product lives, namely product design, business model, supply chain and the technology infrastructure. Following the idea that the most influential phase determining product lives is product development and furthermore acknowledging that the way a product is developed is defined in the requirements given to the product development team, this paper describes two case studies where product requirements were analyzed concerning their closed-loop-thinking and the representation of the aforementioned disciplines using qualitative data analysis. This proceeding adds a new perspective to product development analyses by examining the actual requirements, that are the formal representation of all product development instructions.