Material Selection to Reinforce Circular Economy Trajectories in Industrial Companies: The O.S.M.O.S.I.S. Methodology

The shift towards new economic models is rapidly modifying the way we conceive our products in a systemic way. Diverse business strategies have been developed to tempt companies in adopting new visions, while governmental regulations are pushing towards a strong paradigmatic change of the industrial production to valorize raw materials use. To manage the quantity and the quality of resources deployed into artifacts a material selection (MS) activity is necessary. Several MS theories, methodologies and tools have been studied in research since years. However, their implementation in the dynamics of industrial companies’ routine is difficult to pursue, mainly if their introduction needs to fit in well-defined working paths. Direct cooperation with an Italian company’s employees has been crucial to understand that finding a new MS approach supporting new economic models’ visions without neglecting its traditional pillars and the industrial needs is missing. By adopting a mixed methodology, the research has been oriented to participatory action research, to ground MS activity. Hence, a novel MS approach is proposed: considering technical, hedonic and ethic aspects of raw materials, MS has been investigated interdisciplinary, intending it as an organic activity between different company departments. The proposed work represents a starting point for interpreting the MS task as a process enhancing the way materials are deployed into industrial companies, since they need to build core competencies to facilitate product and components cascading, with prompt intervention on product design activity in the daily practice.