Design for repairability is imperative to making products that last long enough to justify the resources they consume and the pollution they generate. While design for repairability has been gaining steady momentum, especially with recent advances in Right to Repair legislation, there is still work to be done. There are gaps in both the tools available for repair-conscious designers and the products coming onto store shelves. This thesis work aims to help set sails in the right direction on both fronts. This research explores the use of topic modeling (a natural language processing technique) to extract repairability design insights from online customer feedback. This could help repair-conscious designers identify areas for redesign to improve product repairability and/or prioritize components to provide as available replacement parts. Additionally, designers could apply this methodology early in their design process by examining the failure modes of similar existing products. Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and BERTopic approaches are used to analyze 5,000 Amazon reviews for standalone computer keyboards to assess device failure modes. The proposed method identifies several failure modes for keyboards, including keys sticking, legs breaking, keyboards disconnecting, keyboard bases wobbling, and errors while typing. An accelerated product design process for a keyboard is presented to showcase an application of the topic modeling results, as well as to demonstrate the potential for product design that uses a “piggybacking” design strategy to reuse electronic components. This work indicates that topic modeling is a promising approach for obtaining repairability-related design leads and demonstrates the efficacy of product design to reduce e-waste.

This report presents a master’s thesis in Industrial Design Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The project was conducted on behalf of Silva Sweden AB during the spring of 2023, with the goal of modularizing Silva’s current assortment of land compasses. The objectives included reducing the number of components and improving repairability while contributing to Silva’s sustainability framework. Additional objectives were to redesign vital components in order to enable a modular system that is implementable in a circular business model, benefiting both customers and Silva. The methodology of this project included researching, collecting data, mapping, testing and evaluating, ideating, developing, finalizing and communicating. Moreover, the focuses of this project have been the development of baseplates, the compass housing assembly and the mirror attachment. The final design and new compass assortment resulted in a reduction of 40 % of the total components. The most influencing factors for the reduction, besides standardization, were an improved housing assembly and a solution that joins the regular baseplate with a detachable mirror through a snap fit. In relation to the purpose of this project, all objectives are concluded as fulfilled as well as the deliverables which are successfully achieved as well. In conclusion, the result of this project provides a new and modular compass design that minimizes the number of components while contributing to the development of a sustainable compass assortment. / Detta är en masteruppsats inom Teknisk Design vid KTH Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan i Stockholm. Projektet genomfördes under våren 2023 på uppdrag av Silva Sweden AB med målet att modularisera Silvas befintliga sortiment av landkompasser. Syftet med projektet inkluderade minskning av antalet komponenter samt att utöka möjligheten för reparation av kompasser, och således bidra till Silvas pågående hållbarhetsarbete. Lösningen bör även möjliggöra ett modulärt system som ska kunna implementeras i en cirkulär affärsmodell till förmån för både kunder och Silva som företag. Metodiken i detta projekt inkluderade forskning, datainsamling, kartläggning, testning och utvärdering, idégenerering, utveckling, avslutning och kommunikation. Fokus för detta projekt varit att utveckla basplattan, nålhuset och spegelfästet. Den slutliga designen och det nya kompass sortimentet resulterade i en minskning på 40% av det totala antalet komponenter. De mest avgörande faktorerna för minskningen var den modulära lösningen som kombinerade den vanliga basplattan med en avtagbar spegel, samt standardiseringen av komponenter i det nya nålhuset. Utifrån de syften och mål som definierades i projektet så påvisar den slutgiltiga designen att alla dessa är uppfyllda. Sammanfattningsvis visar projektets resultat en ny och modulär kompassdesign som minskar antalet komponenter samtidigt som den bidrar till utvecklingen av ett hållbart kompass sortiment.