Læring som virkemiddel for raskere utvikling av bedre, bærekraftige produkter

Sustainable development in the form of lower emissions and an increased degree of circularity is essential for Norwegian industry to succeed in achieving the ambitious goals of the European Green Deal which defines the EU's environmental strategy and circular economy plan with the aim of halving emissions by 2030, compared to 1990. To remain competitive, the Norwegian industry must therefore be able to develop new sustainable products and processes based on circular business models. In the project "Learning as a tool for faster development of better, sustainable products" (Circular), Laerdal Medical and Haugstad Møbel in collaboration with SINTEF Manufacturing and Møreforsking have aimed to use lean as a strategy, combined with circular economic principles, to develop more sustainable products and processes based on circular business models. Based on Lean's fundamental idea of replacing instruction and control with challenges and problem-solving, the project has, through Action Learning Research, investigated how to engage and educate people, instead of controlling them, so that organizations are enabled to discover new ways to realize the opportunities that lie in an increased degree of circularity in the business model, product portfolio and operations. In the project, specific hypotheses were developed and tested in rapid iterations that formed the basis for a new and innovative model for creating circular business models combining lean and circular economic principles. Furthermore, new product development methods and methods for developing more circular and thus more sustainable production processes were also developed and tested. A concept for cross-functional cooperation and interaction in product development, management, and production has also been developed and implemented. This concept has also been adopted in other companies that did not participate in Circulær. Findings from the project have been presented in several conference articles, journal articles, and in popular science forms, and the findings will be a valuable contribution to the Norwegian industry's further work on sustainable transformation.

The Circular project has created three innovative models for circular business model development, circular product development, and circular operations management and implemented these models in Laerdal Medical and Haugstad Møbel. These models have been published and disseminated through presentations and workshops. Laerdal Medical has developed, released, and further improved through iterative development a new version of their High-End Medical simulator SimMan, the SimMan 3G+. This has contributed to a rise in sales by 63%, where SimMan 3G+ accounts for two-thirds of sales. At the same time, the production footprint has been reduced by 30%, and quality has improved by approximately 50%, measured in First Pass Yield. In addition, a new tool that supports sustainable product development has been designed and implemented and has made it possible to reduce the Co2 footprint in "Little Anne", another simulation product, by 68% and using 60% recycled materials. Haugstad Møbel has increased its turnover by almost 100% from 2020 to 2023 and is expecting a further increase in turnover of over 50% by 2025 compared to 2023 numbers. Haugstad has through the project developed a sustainable design strategy, a concept for a new sustainable furniture collection, and increased productivity of 100% due to new methods developed in the project.

CIRCULÆR promises to enable Norwegian industry to tackle economic and environmental challenges by combining lean thinking with circular economy (CE) principles. The European Green Deal defines the EU's environmental strategy and circular economy plan to halve waste by 2030. Following this notion, Norway’s’ environmental policy brings to focus that its industries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, minimize harmful discharges to water and increase energy efficiency. As such, Norwegian industry must embark on the transition to zero- / low-emission solutions, while simultaneously advancing beyond the dominant linear economy, in order to remain competitive. For Norwegian companies, this transition requires new skills and capabilities throughout the organization. A core lean insight is to replace instructions with challenges and problem solving – so as to engage and educate people rather than control them. As such, the underpinning idea and motivation for this project is to encourage and help organizations to discover and learn new ways of realizing opportunities for circularity throughout their entire product portfolio. With the vision "to develop better, sustainable products in half the time", the main goal of this project is to establish capabilities that support lean circular business models for two industry cases, enabling them to implement sustainable product & process innovation in order to meet the transformation needs of the future - increasing both productivity and market-share and reducing both cost and environmental footprint in the process. To realize this goal, we identify three objectives: 1. Develop a framework for lean circular business models (LCBMs) 2. Apply the framework to transform existing product development processes 3. Develop a concept to transform existing operations management processes The expected R&D result is two lean circular industrial demonstrators based on two specific industrial product development processes.