The Role of Modular Upgradability as a Green Design Strategy
研究模块化可升级性如何影响企业的产品开发与推出决策，并评估其对产品全生命周期环境影响的净效果，发现它可能加速某些子系统的淘汰，从而在某些产品类别中增加环境负担。
Modular upgradability has been suggested as a strategy for improving environmental performance: as technology improves, it allows for independent replacement of improving subsystems, instead of replacing the entire product. This may extend the useful life of stable subsystems, reducing production and disposal impact. However, this argument ignores the effect of modular upgradability on a firm's development and introduction decisions and the environmental impact during the use phase. In this paper, we investigate when modular upgradability leads to lower environmental impact and higher profits. We do so by endogenizing a firm's development and introduction decisions and considering the product's environmental impact during its entire life cycle. Our results show that although modular upgradability may accelerate the replacement of some subsystems, it delays the replacement of others. We find that modular upgradability can increase the environmental impact for some product categories due to accelerated obsolescence arising from more frequent introduction and replacement. However, we also find that accelerated obsolescence, under some conditions, can actually make modular upgradability greener.