MAY 2020
Research In Design
Design For Disassembly Prepared by Pushp Gund Department of Fashion Design National Institute Of Fashion Technology, New Delhi Mentored by Professor Dr. Vandana Narang
Abstract Purpose. In an ideal world, the fashion industry would generate no waste, as all textile and different components of a garment would be recyclable and easy to put back in the loop of circularity. The Purpose of this paper is to produce various strategies for the application of design and garment construction method to produce garments which are designed to disassemble. DFD (Design for Disassembly) ensures a new life to a product, increase in functionality and longevity. Design/Methodology/Approach. With proper knowledge of production methods and pattern drafting various strategies have been found. The strategies mainly focus on retracting new products out of old. Originality/Value. Application of DFD in apparel design and garment construction. The conclusion and strategies could be employed in different apparel product to reduce environmental pollution. DFD garments will also the value of garments, making it 'more than just a shit'. It will be smart clothing!
Keywords. The circularity of Fashion Industry, Design for Disassembly, Design for Longevity, Reusing, Pattern Drafting, Garment Construction, Sustainable Design, Functionality in Fashion.
Introduction Increased production and consumption uses innovative production and consumption methods to dramatically shorten the fashion cycles. The number of fashion seasons has increased from two a year- Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter, to as many as 50100 micro seasons. On an average, 30 Kgs of clothing waste is produced by every individual on earth per year.Current trands have led to major enviromental concerns with 2 million tons of garbage, 2.1 million tons of carbon dioxide, 70 million liters of water waste every year. Pioneering solutions to address enviromental challenges is of upmost importance, United Nations launched the 'UN Alliance on Sustainable Fashion' to encourage corporates, designers and government organisations to produce an industrywide awareness towards fashion’s negative social, economic and enviromental influence and convert it into application of Sustainable Development Objectives. Across the United Nation, bureaus are helping in making fashion more sustainable, from the
Food and Agricultural Organization protecting arable land, to the Ethical Fashion Initiative set up by the International Trade Centre to the work of UN Environment in fostering sustainable manufacturing practices. Design for Disassembly is simply a process by which products can be taken apart easily to be recycled or reused. DFD implicates the product to designed in such a way that the product can be easily be mantained or repaired, reuse of material/components. Though operation of design for disassembly needs a shift within the manner we tend to approach building design, the fundamental principles are already in proceeding in some areas. as an example, Examine the show business, during which huge concert sets are erected and brought down at every tour stop; the systems are designed with continual reuse in mind from the beginning. The goals for design for disassembly are to form enduring merchandise and designs, build value for product holder, and eliminate waste with closed loops. The result is additional versatile products that are forthright to repair, refurbish, or reconfigure; consumer goods that functions as material banks; and products and materials that retain worth and come back to productive use at edge of life.
Review of Literature [1] Application of Design for Disassembly in Men's Jacket: A Study on Sustainable Apparel Design Gam, Hae Jin: Cao, Huantian; Benett, Jaclyn; Helmkamp, Caroline; Farr, Cheryl International Journal od Clothing Science and Technology Vol. 23 No. 2/3, 2011 "Material selection According to the 12 principles of green engineering (Anastas and Zimmerman, 2003), material diversity in multi-component products should be minimized to promote disassembly and value retention. To minimize material diversity and facilitate disassembly, the jacket was designed with two main components, a natural outer shell (biological nutrients) and a synthetic lining (technical nutrients).... Jacket design The basic blazer design was the same as that shown in Figure 1. To minimize material use,contamination,andeffortfordisassembly,theresearchersdecidednottousebuttons on the sleeves, shoulder pads, sleeve headers, or chest pieces. Researchers decided that the jacket prototype without these additions still retained an at-
tractive appearance. Evaluation of sewing stitches (joints) As mentioned, organic cotton threads were used to sew the wool outer shell and polyester lining together. The stitches in this type of design must be durable during consumer use but easy to separate at the end of the product’s life. After visually inspecting and manually pulling three hand stitching types – blind hemming stitch, catch stitch, and slip stitch – and three machine stitching types – fagot stitch, normal straight stitch in different stitch sizes, and blind hemming stitch – the researchers decided tofocusonthemachine – sewn,normalstraightstitch indifferentsizes andthe blind hemming stitch for further investigation in the design process.” [2] Rethinking the Fashion Collection as a Design Strategic Tool in a Circular Economy Raebild, Ulla; Bang, Anne Louise The Design Journal, 2017 "An important part of the overall circular design strategy isthe development of a number of systems that differ from the seasonbased and linear systems. The first one is a productservice system (rather than aproduct system) that enables easy identification of the right product, easy access, easy use, easy maintenance and easy replacement of garment packages for users. Secondly, the practical design work ishighly dependent on feedbackfrom different stakeholders in a two-way and interactive format to support the refinement of existing design (rather thana one-way system to support sale of new design)–in other words, a system of different feedback loops, where users, items and manufacturers impact the design. Lastly, the concept of the ‘collection’ is visibly present and applied in the circular design practice, but the collection represents a new type of collection systemthinking that involves long-term temporal planning and, in this case, a grouping of garments in specific age and gender packages. It is a system that defines garments within groups of basic wardrobe needssupplemented with individually chosen add-ons. Hence, overall the servicesystem, the user-interaction platforms and the garments must be designed as a whole. Temporal planning is also necessary in the linear model, in the sense that it is a logistical and designerly challenge to develop and launch consecutive collections and/or garments at a high speed. The difference lies in the contrastingapproaches to how ‘the temporal’ aspect can be applied as a strategy, namelyto aim for longevity or the opposite –fast product replacement. Thatsaid, many groupswithinthe fashion industry now do not necessarily agree with the concept of fast fashion, and durable products and good quality is not exclusively an aim within sustainability focused companies.
Regarding materials, the choice of range seems as vital in the circular system as in the linear. Vigga has some specific material properties on whichthe company’schoices arebased(e.g. flexibility and certification), but such specifics can generally differ, also within the linear system. The biggest difference here is that: A. The materials must all be easy to maintain for the user in the daily caretaking (not always a criterion in the linear system), as well as on return, when they must be cleaned by the company before they are sent out again (not a criterion in the linear system). B. The range of materials is limited, and changes in the range happens slowly (this is not a predominant issuein the linear system, as focus is on newness). A number of parameters thatexceeded the existing linearoneemerged from the data (Table 2). For this particular case (Vigga) they represent important issues, but the level of implementation differs, from highly embedded, such as e.g. flexibility and durability, to aims for the future, such as e.g. design for disassembly and repair." [3] A Design For Disassembly Approach and Manage End-of-Life options for Industrial Products in the Early Design Phase "Inparticular, eco-design approaches such as design for disassembly (DFD) give a setof principles and rules used to guide designers in designing products which are easyto disassemble (Bogue 2007). DFD makes the de-manufacturing plan of components simple and effcient, and must be considered for product components with ahigh quality/value which can be separated from the others for reusing, recycling orremanufacturing. DFD supports designers in their choices, but it is diffcult tomanage and to integrate in the traditional design process. Furthermore, even if DFDrules are well-known, it is diffcult to take them into account during the designphases, when time is limited and structural and functional evaluations dominateother design drivers. However, manufacturing companies need to consider DFDand EOL management as a fundamental prerequisite for the product design anddevelopment (Dewhurst 1993). In fact, separating components and subassembliesmakes the consistency of EOL closed-loop scenarios and the management ofproducts at EOL possible (Herrmann et al. 2008). In this way the future amount ofwaste can be reduced and the consumption of nonrenewable resources can belimited. The disassemblability analysis is mainly based on the time and costassessment of disassembly operations and technologies. On the other hand, sus-tainability analysis can be done to evaluate the environmental performances of theproduct during lifecycle and also at disposal. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) isa standardized methodology which analyzes the EOL problems
concerning theenvironmental impact (ISO 2006). LCA has a powerful method to evaluate theenvironmental sustainability of products and technologies, but only considersenvironmental items, and this aspect limits the analysis potential of the method... Design for Disassembly is a particular target design methodology (DFx) whichaims for the rapid separation of the components of an industrial product. The product disassemblability is relevant in two different phases of product lifetime:during the use phase for maintenance operations and during the EOL phase.Successful DFD entails the application of three critical disciplines:•the selection and use of materials;•the design of components and the product architecture;•the selection and use of joints, connectors and fasteners (Bogue 2007).Several authors have developed rules and guidelines to design products for easydisassembly. DFD methods involve all the phases of a product lifecycle design,from the conceptual design stage to detailed design stage. Dewhurst (1993) evaluates the depth of disassembly for particular components in a product toestablish the effective cost convenience for disassembly operations. Zussman et al.(1994) employed a utility theory for assessment of EOL alternatives, which alsotakes into account the uncertainties in future economic and technical conditions.The authors considered three objectives in this evaluation: 1. Profit maximization through selection of the best EOL option; 2. Maximization of the number of reusable parts; 3. Minimization of the amount of landfill waste." [4] Design for Disassembly and Deconstruction Rios, Fernanda Cruz; Chong, Wai K; Gran, David Procedia Engineering, 2015 " DfD is practice to ease the deconstruction processes and procedures through planning and design. Deconstruction is the process of demolishing a building but restore the use of the demolished materials. The deconstruction process essentially changes the traditional waste management process. The DfD process is an important strategy to conserve raw materials [11]. Figure 1 illustrates how DfD functions as a Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (3R) processes. The 3R processes eliminate the need for composting, burning and disposing of waste.... The key principles of DfD include: 1) proper documentation of materials and methods for deconstruction; 2) design the accessible connections and jointing methods to ease dismantling (e.g. minimizing chemical and welding connections and using bolted, screwed and nailed connections, using prefabricated and/or modular structure); 3) separate non-recyclable, non-reusable and
non-disposal items, such as mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems; 4) design simple structure and forms that allow the standardization of components and dimensions; and 5) design that reflects labor practices, productivity and safety [13]. Despite the hype of the concepts of deconstruction and Design for Disassembly among the practitioners, it has yet achieved success in the industry due to its impracticality imposed by codes, standards and professional practices. [2]. For example, building professionals will find it extremely challenging to integrate the concepts into their designs as they do not have the freedom and control over project schedule and cost, and they also face non-availability of materials. In order to successfully implement these concepts, there is a need to change the practices, perceptions and methods of delivery of different stakeholders. The market has to agree to develop and market these products, and the reuse/recycling market has to be matured enough to accept and sell these materials. [4,12]. That Norway has been able to generate zero waste and import more wastes to run their power plants clearly indicates the feasibility of the concepts."
Questionnaire Demographics 1. Name : 2. Gender: Male/Female/Others 3. Age: 10-16/16-30/30-45/45-65 4. Level of Education: (Optional) 5. Profession: (Optional) Design for Disassembly is simply a process by which products can be taken apart easily to be recycled or reused. DFD implicates the product to designed in such a way that the product can be easily be mantained or repaired, reuse of material/components. Though operation of design for disassembly needs a shift within the manner we tend to approach building design, Answers in Yes/No/Maybe 6. Are you aware of the term Design for Disassembly? 7. Would you be interested in wearing clothes with application of Design for Disassembly? 8. Do you think with new technologies like DFD, the trend of 'fast fashion' will be resolved? 9. As a consumer, would you be interested in giving a second life to your garment? 10. Do you think longevity of garments will decrease the overall consumption rate?
Answer in Strongly Agree/Agree/Nuetral/Disagree/Strongly Disagree 11. A Jacket can be converted into a bagpack with negligible efforts, will you interested? 12. Do you think giving a second life to an exhisting product helps in longevity of the overall garment? 13. Do you think new technologies like Design for Disassembly will play an important role for a susatianable future? 14. Would you be ready to spend more money on products associated with Design for Disassembly? 15. Design for Disassembly can easily be implemented in all designing branches?
Analysis of Responses A chart representing people who beleive that Design for Disassembly will play an important role for a sustainable future.
A chart representing people who would be interested in buying clothes that are associated with Design for Disassembly.
A chart representing people who would beleive in giving their garments a second life, thus increasing the longevity of their clothes.
Conclusion Various studies pointed towards the designing method because the main hindrance to deconstruct garments, buildings are designed not considering the end of life and also the method of recovery of those materials. Designers, in general, have made their “creations” as being permanent and haven’t created provisions at the end of their lives. Most designers don’t design with Associate in Nursing finish in mind. The designer is accountable for most of the obstacles within the utilization method. If designers don’t adopt a proper lifecycle approach, use and utilization activities can become impracticable within the future. Additionally, affirmed that designers would need to be at the frontline to confirm that salvaged materials are going to be reused. Those statements stressed the importance of Design for Disassembly. Through case studies and qualitative research, deconstruction would be a possible different to demolition given the correct laws and markets to be in place first. the most challenges in deconstruction implementation are often overcome by the opportunities created by DFD, public involvement and fortunate partnerships. As future efforts for this analysis, quantitative information on building materials’ use, utilization and deconstruction activities are going to be collected and analyzed. the target is to contribute to establishing metrics for building’s reusability and recyclability. These metrics are often employed in building codes and government subsidies that aim to incentive deconstruction activity, by establishing recyclability goals for brand spanking new buildings, as an example. Besides, once these metrics are well established, the development industry’s stakeholders can have a additional solid basis for decision-making method relating to philosophical theory and style for dismantling.
References [1] Application of Design for Disassembly in Men’s Jacket: A Study on Sustainable Apparel Design Gam, Hae Jin: Cao, Huantian; Benett, Jaclyn; Helmkamp, Caroline; Farr, Cheryl International Journal od Clothing Science and Technology Vol. 23 No. 2/3, 2011 [2] Rethinking the Fashion Collection as a Design Strategic Tool in a Circular Economy Raebild, Ulla; Bang, Anne Louise The Design Journal, 2017
[3] A Design For Disassembly Approach and Manage End-of-Life options for Industrial Products in the Early Design Phase [4] Design for Disassembly and Deconstruction Rios, Fernanda Cruz; Chong, Wai K; Gran, David Procedia Engineering, 2015
Methodology: Shirt, Trouser & Jacket
Front
Back
Invisible Placket
Contrast Stitching
Straps gives aesthetic and functionality When disassembled these will be used as straps for the bag
Crossbody Bag
DISASSEMBLY Lapped Zipper Providing the ease to disassemble the garement into a crossbody bag
Front
Back
Front
Back
Pockets
Contrast Stitching
Lapped Zipper Providing the ease to disassemble the garement into a bagpack
DISASSEMBLY
Laptop Sleeve/Travel Bag
Front
Back
Front
Back
Lapped Zipper Providing the ease to disassemble the garement into a bagpack
Contrast Stitching
Inbuilt Bagpack
Pockets
Symmetric and Industrial Silhouette
When disassembled these will be used as straps for the bagpack
DISASSEMBLY
Bagpack
Front
Back