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The manufacturing industry contributes to climate change and must take action to reach its high-set target. Implementation of circularity to reach sustainability has shown to be beneficial for products, but there is a lack of knowledge on how to transfer the concept to the design of factories. The purpose of the paper is to identify and systemically analyse areas of importance to enable circularity in production development to better understand what requires attention to achieve a circular factory. The focus of the study is on production development narrowed down to production equipment. A case study approach was used with interviews as the main method for data collection. Four main themes were identified: competence, collaboration, mindset and time. These were considered as areas of importance to enable circularity and to understand what needs further attention they were analysed in a systemic view of macro-, meso- and microlevel. The findings stress the need for investing in circularity in early phases to achieve circularity and that all levels of the industry need to take part in the transition towards circularity. Further, research within areas with similar complexities could benefit and learn from each other.

With the arising climate crisis and resource scarcity on our planet, companies need to drastically ensure a transition towards a circular economy. In fact, global resource consumption is more than 1.7 times the resources regenerated yearly. To tackle this, the emphasis often lies within products with the attempt at ensuring efficient use and prolongation of their lifetimes. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, a wider perspective must be taken to include also surrounding elements. A lesser emphasized area involves engineering assets (EAs), e.g. inventories and equipment. Prolonging the lifetime of EAs through remanufacturing, repairing, and reconditioning might lead to the reduction of resource usage and aid in battling the climate crisis. However, extensive and widespread comprehension of how to prolong the lifetime of EAs is currently limited. Therefore, the purpose of this research is, through a case study, to identify how the prolongation of the lifetime of EAs can be successfully realized. To fulfil the purpose, data collection has been achieved through several interviews and document studies with a large retail company in Sweden. Employees with various roles at the case company have been interviewed, ensuring a richer picture of the company’s engineering asset management (EAM). A SWOT analysis has been conducted, describing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats divided into strategical, tactical and operational levels. The novelty of the research lies in combining these two in the context of EAM in the retail industry with the aim of achieving circularity.

Accelerating the transition towards circularity is increasingly critical. While efforts within the manufacturing industry have focused on product circularity, there is a need to broaden the scope to include production systems and equipment. R-principles, such as reduce, reuse, recycle, offer a general approach to circularity, but lack sector-specific action points. Design for X (DfX) methods have shown potential to support circularity and could potentially facilitate the R-principles, but are in need of further research to understand their connections. This study aims to investigate the convergence between commonly used DfX approaches and R-principles and how it could enable circularity in production equipment design. A case study approach was applied, combining data from a literature review with empirical data from industry. The findings contribute to the understanding of how already existing DfX methods could promote circularity, accelerating the transitions towards circularity for the whole manufacturing industry.