Product ecosystem theory

Last updated

Product ecosystem theory is an emerging theory that describes how the design of manufactured products evolves over time and draws parallels with how species evolve within a natural ecosystem. Fundamental to this theory is that manufactured product lines respond to external threats and opportunities in much the same way that species respond to threats and opportunities. Competition and other environmental pressures may cause a species to become extinct. An example of the parallel in consumer products is the way in which the typewriter became displaced (or extinct) due to pressures from the personal computer. Products lines can be seen to incrementally change and branch over time following the principle of phyletic gradualism. Or they can be seen to have periods of stasis followed by disruptive innovation. This follows the principle of punctuated equilibrium

Ecosystem Theory provides a conceptual framework that helps designers and others understand the mechanisms underpinning product innovation in a tangible and visual way.

Technology change is one of the environmental variables that provide both opportunity and threat for products in much the same way that environmental variables such as climate provide opportunity and threat for species. Evaluating designed products from this perspective is useful as it shows that the value of a product is not contained entirely within the product itself. Value is also obtained from the rest of the ecosystem.

History and usage of the term

The term was first used in this context by Tim Williams in 2013 in a paper he wrote with Marianella Chamorro-Koc. [1] This paper proposed a methodology for understanding the difficulties of implementation for disruptive innovation based on a case study of the MIT City Car. The term has been used non-specifically prior to this on a number of occasions. [2] [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecology</span> Study of organisms and their environment

Ecology is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history.

Le Chatelier's principle, also called Chatelier's principle, is a principle of chemistry used to predict the effect of a change in conditions on chemical equilibrium. The principle is named after French chemist Henry Louis Le Chatelier, and sometimes also credited to Karl Ferdinand Braun, who discovered it independently. It can be defined as:

If the equilibrium of a system is disturbed by a change in one or more of the determining factors the system tends to adjust itself to a new equilibrium by counteracting as far as possible the effect of the change

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disruptive innovation</span> Technological change

In business theory, disruptive innovation is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The term, "disruptive innovation" was popularized by the American academic Clayton Christensen and his collaborators beginning in 1995, but the concept had been previously described in Richard N. Foster's book "Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage" and in the paper Strategic Responses to Technological Threats.

The precautionary principle is a broad epistemological, philosophical and legal approach to innovations with potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. It emphasizes caution, pausing and review before leaping into new innovations that may prove disastrous. Critics argue that it is vague, self-cancelling, unscientific and an obstacle to progress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecological niche</span> Fit of a species living under specific environmental conditions

In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors and how it in turn alters those same factors. "The type and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental niche vary from one species to another [and] the relative importance of particular environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographic and biotic contexts".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logging</span> Process of cutting, processing, and moving trees

Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used narrowly to describe the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. In common usage, however, the term may cover a range of forestry or silviculture activities.

In business and engineering, product development or new product development covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product and introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along with various business considerations. New product development is described broadly as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product available for sale. The products developed by an organisation provide the means for it to generate income. For many technology-intensive firms their approach is based on exploiting technological innovation in a rapidly changing market.

A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politically applied focus. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report argues "that to be green, an economy must not only be efficient, but also fair. Fairness implies recognizing global and country level equity dimensions, particularly in assuring a Just Transition to an economy that is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive."

Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process. Based on the results of testing the most recent iteration of a design, changes and refinements are made. This process is intended to ultimately improve the quality and functionality of a design. In iterative design, interaction with the designed system is used as a form of research for informing and evolving a project, as successive versions, or iterations of a design are implemented.

Earth systems engineering and management (ESEM) is a discipline used to analyze, design, engineer and manage complex environmental systems. It entails a wide range of subject areas including anthropology, engineering, environmental science, ethics and philosophy. At its core, ESEM looks to "rationally design and manage coupled human–natural systems in a highly integrated and ethical fashion". ESEM is a newly emerging area of study that has taken root at the University of Virginia, Cornell and other universities throughout the United States, and at the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research (CESER) at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Founders of the discipline are Braden Allenby and Michael Gorman.

Bright green environmentalism is an ideology based on the belief that the convergence of technological change and social innovation provides the most successful path to sustainable development.

Quaternary science is the subfield of geology which studies the Quaternary Period commonly known as the ice age. The Quaternary Period is a time period that started around 2.58 million years ago and continues today. This period is divided into two epochs – the Pleistocene Epoch and the Holocene Epoch. The aim of Quaternary science is to understand everything that happened during the Pleistocene Epoch and the Holocene Epoch to be able to acquire fundamental knowledge about Earth's environment, ecosystem, climate changes, etc. Quaternary science was first studied during the nineteenth century by Georges Cuvier, a French scientist. Most Quaternary scientists have studied the history of the Quaternary to predict future changes in climate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecological resilience</span> Capacity of ecosystems to resist and recover from change

In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and subsequently recovering. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates. When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regenerative design</span> Process-oriented whole systems approach to design

Regenerative design is an approach to designing systems or solutions that aims to work with or mimic natural ecosystem processes for returning energy from less usable to more usable forms. Regenerative design uses whole systems thinking to create resilient and equitable systems that integrate the needs of society with the integrity of nature. Regenerative design is an active topic of discussion in engineering, landscape design, food systems, and community development.

David Rogers was an American racing driver who won the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series national championship in 1994.

Strategic design is the application of future-oriented design principles in order to increase an organization's innovative and competitive qualities. Its foundations lie in the analysis of external and internal trends and data, which enables design decisions to be made on the basis of facts rather than aesthetics or intuition. The discipline is mostly practiced by design agencies or by internal development departments.

In ecology, the theory of alternative stable states predicts that ecosystems can exist under multiple "states". These alternative states are non-transitory and therefore considered stable over ecologically-relevant timescales. Ecosystems may transition from one stable state to another, in what is known as a state shift, when perturbed. Due to ecological feedbacks, ecosystems display resistance to state shifts and therefore tend to remain in one state unless perturbations are large enough. Multiple states may persist under equal environmental conditions, a phenomenon known as hysteresis. Alternative stable state theory suggests that discrete states are separated by ecological thresholds, in contrast to ecosystems which change smoothly and continuously along an environmental gradient.

Environmentally sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability and also aimed at improving the health and comfort of occupants in a building. Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and well-being of building occupants, thereby improving building performance. The basic objectives of sustainability are to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste, and create healthy, productive environments.

Systemic design is an interdiscipline that integrates systems thinking and design practices. It is a pluralistic field, with several dialects including systems-oriented design. Influences have included critical systems thinking and second-order cybernetics. In 2021, the Design Council (UK) began advocating for a systemic design approach and embedded it in a revision of their double diamond model.

The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC), established in 2009 in the United States, are a network of 22 regional conservation bodies covering the entire United States and adjacent areas. They are autonomous cooperatives sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior and aim to develop coordinated conservation strategies applicable to large areas of land. Partnerships are formed with government and non-government conservation organizations to achieve common goals of conservation. While fairly new as government supported entities, the LCCs are similar to initiatives that have been started or advocated in other countries.

References

  1. Williams, Tim; Chamorro-Koc, Marianella (2013). Product ecosystems: an emerging methodological approach to study the implementation of disruptive innovations: the case of the CityCar. [Shuppanchi fumei]: 5th International Congress of IASDR 2013. pp. 1286–1295. ISBN   978-4-9980776-3-3.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  2. Zhou, Feng (2010). "Fundamentals of product ecosystem design for user experience". Research in Engineering Design. 22 (1): 43–61. doi:10.1007/s00163-010-0096-z.
  3. Tobias, Jim (26 April 2007). "Accessibility and Product Ecosystems". The Information Society. 23 (3): 183–186. doi:10.1080/01972240701323598.
  4. Armano, David. "Building responsive and resilient brands in a connected world". Logic and Emotion.