Identical products often operate in vastly different environments and use cases, exposing them to uneven and sometimes unpredictable mechanical or functional loads. This results in inefficiencies and only partial fulfillment of customer needs. To improve sustainability and maximize customer satisfaction, future products must be capable of adapting to changing operating conditions. Biology offers a wide array of midlife adaptation strategies, known as phenotypic plasticity, that enable organisms to maintain or enhance their performance over time. Building on this concept, phenotypic plasticity mechanisms were systematically analyzed and the findings were translated into an engineering context. The accompanying comparison model facilitates the selection of adaptations by providing a transparent, multi-criteria evaluation framework. The result is a four-step methodology that guides companies in implementing adaptive capabilities into product-service systems.

Electric mobility is a crucial component of the transition toward sustainable transportation, providing a cleaner and more efficient alternative to traditional fuel-powered vehicles. Therefore, the scope of considerations should include not only product design but also end-of-life scenarios. The disassembly and remanufacturing of products have proven to be achievable for other products. We develop an approach for robust remanufacturing plant ramp-up, by assessing a broad range of scenarios, including product changes. Additionally, a flexible modeling approach is developed that enables a joint view of product and process. This work employs a simulation-based assessment to suggest and evaluate alternative disassembly system designs. Discrete-event simulation is used to systematically assess various scenarios and system configurations. Scenarios are designed based on product knowledge, product arrival quantities and information provision. We expect the establishment of battery passes for electric vehicles in the coming years, enabling the collection of more detailed information on products and more informed decision-making on how to proceed with a specific product instance at the end of its life. A full-factorial experimental plan is used for scenario assessment. Based on the results, suggestions for designing a sustainable and economically viable disassembly system are made. This ensures that the ramp-up for the circular production of electric vehicles is both economically feasible and capable of meeting the growing demand for electric vehicles. Stakeholders are enabled to evaluate potential outcomes. The approach is applied to a simplified use-case. Based on the results, different design strategies can be evaluated and a simple but flexible modeling approach is created.

The production of today is impacted by megatrends such as individualization, digitization and shortening product lifecycles. Therefore, the production of tomorrow will require to be rethought in many aspects. Training courses are already being offered in this regard in learning factories, focusing for example on scalable automatization or lean concepts. A further upcoming, strong requirement is sustainability and new concepts are being demanded that enable sustainable production. A central aspect here is the circularity of materials and products and thus the path towards a circular economy (CE). Different CE-strategies, spanning from reuse to recover can be used to reduce resource consumption. Since primary shaping is a major contributor for resource consumption in production, particularly remanufacturing or the reuse of parts are of great interest in this context. For this purpose, a new training module is developed teaching basic concepts of circular production. Starting with product design, topics such as design for remanufacturing or reverse logistics, planning and control, and traceability are considered. Each round is therefore underpinned by a cost model that quantifies the effects of selected measures for a circular production in an exemplary assembly use case. Complexities are represented in a playful way and solutions are developed in groups. The training thus makes challenges tangible and at the same time presents approaches to address these upcoming challenges.