Chatty Factories
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Lancaster Inst for the Contemporary Arts
Abstract
The research will achieve a radical interruption of the existing 'consumer sovereignty' model based around surveys and market research - and introduce 'use sovereignty' via an embedded understanding of consumer behaviour - making products that are fit for purpose based on how they are used. This will not be unmediated but buffered by robust, secure and interpretable data analysis at scale - with ethical integration of human labour. Designers will have a completely transformed role being 'embedded in production' in a world of "chatty" products and a dynamically evolving factory floor. Our approach will transform the ways in which traditional factories are reconfigured in real time by adopting a first mover approach to real time reconfiguration, production element reskilling (human, robot or both collaboratively).
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Daniel Richards (Primary Supervisor) | |
| James Thorp (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N509504/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 2111760 | Studentship | EP/N509504/1 | 01/01/2018 | 31/12/2022 | James Thorp |
| Description | Chatty Factories Industry Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Industry showcase presenting project findings to date and requesting possible collaborations and case studies to apply the research to real world problems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Chatty Factories design workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Three workshops held by the team in Lancaster, London and Edinburgh to get designer, academic and industry perspectives on the future of data-driven product design. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/140734/ |
| Description | Conference presentation - Cumulus 2022 - Towards Sustainable Internet of Things Objects: Design Strategies for End-of-Life |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Conference paper presentation to hybrid (online/in-person) audience of around 20-30 people (academic climate change conference). Abstract: This paper discusses how Internet of Things (IoT), and associated technologies, are resulting in a proliferation of manufactured objects with useful, yet short lives. We explored this issue through designers' personal practice and relationships with objects. We examine how designers, manufacturers, and users of IoT can adapt to reduce objects' energy, resource, and climate impacts. End-of-life IoT objects present challenges and opportunities for sustainable design. We use the term end-of-life to describe the point at which objects cease to be useful through damage, loss of support, user choice and so on. The increasing volume of redundant IoT objects is driven by unsustainable, linear 'take, make, dispose' (Moreno et al., 2016) principles: replacement over repair; hardware tied to software development; increasing energy demands; and virgin material extraction (Stahel, 2016; Unwin, 2020). In this paper, we synthesise findings from a workshop with industry and academic designers that explored how design affects the end-of-life of IoT objects. We present two high-level strategies for more sustainable IoT design. Two key questions framed the issue and guided our discussions: 1. What values compel people to keep, re-use or reimagine IoT objects after they are no longer functional? 2. What tactics can we use to design these values into IoT objects, to encourage end-of-life upcycling, appropriation, and re-use? Our workshop findings led us to two high-level design strategies to address sustainability and climate impacts of end-of-life IoT objects. Emerging from the tactics and values discussed, our two proposed strategies are Sustainable Caregiving for IoT Objects and Re-imagining IoT Objects for Sustainability. The first strategy is to change people's relationships with their IoT objects, thus increasing their value and extending object lives for a world with finite resources. Our second strategy is to re-imagine existing objects creatively and facilitate circular lives through design. We believe our workshop findings contribute to growing discourse in design research seeking to challenge prevailing modes of IoT design and manufacture and explore new sustainable models. There is much work to be done to move IoT away from throwaway black boxes to anything resembling a sustainable technology ecosystem that supports our societal response to the climate emergency. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/174598/ |
| Description | Conference presentation - IASDR 2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Conference presentation to design research community, in the AI and speculative futures session. Paper - "OSKARRR: Data-driven Design Speculations For The Future of Domestic Waste" - to be published in forthcoming conference proceedings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/162624/1/IASDR2021_Pictorial_OSKARRR.pdf |
| Description | Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2020 conference workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Internet of Things (IoT) and ubiquitous computing are leading to an increase in objects with a short lifespan - either through breakage, "bricking" by the manufacturer, or discontinued use by the owner. This website documents a virtual workshop that took place as part of ACM DIS 2020, which explored how the configuration of values (e.g., functional, emotional, sentimental and environmental) designed into IoT objects influences the end-user practices of disposal, recycling and upcycling after these objects become defunct or obsolete. Through this lens, we considered potential design strategies that can be instilled during the process of design, to support the continuity of the material life of IoT objects after their "death". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/endoflifeiot/home |
| Description | Poster presentation at Smart Industry 4 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation of phd research to academics, industry and other postgraduate researchers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |