Advancing circular product development (CPD) requires design decisions that account for the entire product life cycle, from material sourcing and manufacturing to use and end-of-use (EoU) stages, to ensure enhanced sustainability performance. Existing Product Development Process (PDP) models tend to emphasize isolated phases or perspectives with limited explicit consideration of the total product life cycle. This hinders the systematic embedding of various Circular Economy (CE) strategies during product development. Thus, designers and engineers lack a unified framework to determine when and where critical decisions should be made to effectively incorporate CE strategies such as effective resource selection, extending product use-life, and waste minimization when developing circular products. This research develops a generalized framework that integrates total life cycle considerations by synthesizing established PDP models. A thematic analysis of widely referenced PDP models is conducted to identify recurring decisions, sequence of decisions across the different PDP phases, and their relevance to product development. This analysis establishes an integrated framework that embeds life cycle thinking across all phases of product development and identifies pertinent CE implementation decisions for each PDP phase. The proposed framework offers a structured foundation for life cycle-oriented decision making and facilitates more effective integration of circular product requirements during the PDP, addressing critical gaps in current CE implementation approaches.
Guedes et al. (2026) studied this question.