Design Tools

Remain agile while simultaneously becoming strategically autonomous and future-proof as a company. Circular design is one of the most powerful drivers of that change: it not only helps you make your own products future-proof, but also helps you organize supply chains in a smarter and more sustainable way. On this page, you’ll find a freely accessible selection of design tools to support you in every phase of product development and organizational growth toward future-proof entrepreneurship.

Whether you’re a manufacturer, designer, or client: by prioritizing value creation and actively engaging with circular design strategies, modular design, reuse, and smart use of materials, you can formulate your own response to the challenges of today and tomorrow. You can do this by working directly with the tools, participating in a workshop, or collaborating within a CIRCO Supply Chain Track.

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Focus on future-oriented entrepreneurship

By using the design tools that are appropriate for your development phase, you can:

Discover where the circular potential of your products or services lies.
Identify new business opportunities while mitigating supply risks.
Explore relevant circular business models and assess their feasibility.
Ensure early compliance with (upcoming) laws and regulations and integrate compliance into the design.
Get started right away with specific topics such as environmental impact, raw materials and data, highly hazardous substances, circular program requirements, residual value, design for repair, remanufacturing, and more.

The tools are designed to work together: you can start at the level that suits your organization and, once you’ve completed that stage, easily go deeper or broaden your scope. This allows you to immediately turn insights into practical actions, making your products and processes circular and future-proof.

Design Tools for Strategic Progress

80% of a product’s impact is determined during the design phase. Circonnect’s design tools provide insight into the critical choices that promote value retention, unlock new business opportunities, and enhance supply security. This enables you to set strategic priorities, develop a circular set of requirements, and bring your design vision to life, ensuring that both your products and processes are future-proof.

The Tools You Need Right Now

As you work with the tools, you’ll gain practical guidance that you can immediately apply in your business. No matter where you are in the development of your product or portfolio, there’s always a tool that can help you move forward. Because the tools are designed to work together, once you’ve completed the process, you can easily delve deeper or broaden your scope and further develop your circular strategy. This allows you to innovate in a structured way.

Staying Ahead of Compliance

Our tools help you translate upcoming laws and regulations into concrete design principles at an early stage. This prevents compliance from becoming an afterthought and instead allows you to use regulations as a guiding framework for material use, reusability, and product transparency. At the same time, you enhance your product’s circular value and supply security.

Straight to work

With the Design Tools, you can immediately translate new insights into practical decisions and actions. They help you look at your product, your supply chain, and your business model in a new light, so you can take immediate steps toward a circular, robust, and future-proof design and proposition.

Take me to the design tools

Tool Compass

Want to know which tool is best for you to get started with? Then follow the Tool Compass and quickly find exactly what you need right now—tailored to your needs and suited to your stage of development.

I want to fill out the Toolkompas

Do you do it yourself, or do you do it together?

There’s a relevant tool for every step of your journey, and sometimes you’ll find yourself returning to the same tool more often. You decide how to use the tools: on your own, or with a facilitator who guides you through the process.

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Frequently asked questions

I don't know which tool is best for my situation. Where do I start?

The Tool Compass quickly directs you to the tool that best suits your needs and stage of development. Answer a few questions and you’ll immediately receive a recommendation on which tool will help you move forward. I want to fill out the Tool Compass

Can I use the design tools even if I haven't worked with circular design before?

Yes. The tools are tailored to different stages of development, so you can start at the level that best suits your organization. Once you’ve completed that stage, you can easily go deeper or broaden your scope, allowing you to progress step by step toward a circular design practice.

Do the tools also help ensure compliance with laws and regulations?

Yes. The tools translate upcoming laws and regulations into concrete design principles, allowing you to incorporate compliance into the design process rather than addressing it afterward. This way, you can use regulations as a guiding framework for material selection, reusability, and product transparency.

After using a tool, can I move on to the next step?

Yes. The tools are designed to work together, so once you’ve completed one tool, you can easily delve deeper or broaden your understanding within the same theme. This allows you to build out your circular strategy step by step. At the end of each tool, we provide suggestions for specific next steps.

I would like to work on circularity throughout my entire product chain. Are these tools useful for this purpose?

If you want to get down to business with your supply chain partners, you can participate in a CIRCO Supply Chain Track. In this series, you’ll work together to explore opportunities for your supply chain and immediately begin formulating concrete actions.

The design tools let you approach your supply chain in a different way; with the CESI Supply Tool, you can delve into the collaboration between suppliers and OEMs, and with the Supply Chain Collaboration Tool, you can discover how to organize effective supply chain collaboration.