Connected lifecycle systems: A new perspective on industrial symbiosis

Decreasing total natural resource input is critical for sustainability. Thus, improving resource efficiency is increasingly required at all levels from products to industry-wide systems. Product lifecycle systems and business models for circular economy, such as remanufacturing and sharing products, have been developed in only particular markets. Lifecycle processes of different products are often connected after sales, even if the products and their lifecycle processes were developed by independent companies or business communities. This study focuses on one such complex system called “connected lifecycle systems,” which is a system of systems comprising product lifecycle systems. Connected lifecycle systems can be regarded as industrial symbiosis in wide areas. The objective of this paper is to propose a hybrid simulation architecture for more realistically calculating dynamic material flow in connected lifecycle systems.