Planned Obsolescence
Abstract
Mojan and Fred discuss Planned Obsolescence in product development. Planned obsolescence isn’t just about making people buy the next model — it’s a complex mix of engineering, business, and sustainability decisions. How do we decide how long a product should really last?
Key Points
Join Mojan and Fred as they discuss:
The trade-offs between design life, warranty costs, and reparability.
How sustainability goals are reshaping lifespan expectations.
Stories of products that kept working decades after their intended design life.
Why business models and customer perception are just as important as technical design.
Every product has an “intended life” — but is that the same as its useful life? And who gets to decide?
Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.
Show Notes
During the episode, we also discuss ideas from Rory Sutherland’s TED Talk on how perception and creative thinking can solve problems — a perspective that complements our discussion on product lifespans and sustainability.
Relvera – Reliability & Failure Analysis Engineering Consulting
Thanks for a great podcast which made me think. During the podcast Fred ref
lected that those people buying a product later in it’s life should get a discount as support will be available for less time, then for those people buying the item earlier. For electronics such as phones this is the case as the new version is released the older version is available cheaper and in the case of software, often the early adopters find the bugs so that later adopters suffer less problems