Niaga – Closing the loop
NIAGA
A PROJECT BY
Daniel Rotari, Zaki Fairuzzaki , Arnout Ulenberg & Evelijn van Hilten
CHALLENGE
Niaga has an adhesive technology that keeps materials clean during the manufacturing of furniture. After use, materials can be used again and again if the products are returned. Our assignment was to close the loop for the circular furniture business. We worked on enabling different sectors and increasing the user experience of circularity.
OUTCOME
Besides researching the context of circular economy, the team created prototypes that stimulate the 3 involved actors (users, businesses, governments) and a room design. The designed meeting room is situated at the Niaga factory and lets visitors experience circularity. Consequently, the room will stimulate new clients and a larger circular furniture business.
PROCESS
QUARTILE 1
The field of circular economy was novel to us when we first got in touch with it. The first quartile was focussed on exploring the field: we spoke with 20 industry experts, researched papers, and read into the publications by renown circular economy institutions like the Ellen MacArthur foundation. The end result was a comprehensive context dossier that provides insight in the ciruclar economy and the parties operating in the furniture market.
QUARTILE 2
With an already strong first quartile, we decided to kick it up a notch and provide a pallette of solutions for Niaga to look into for closing the loop. The outcomes:
-
Article about different solutions that would foster closed loops and enable circular economy in multiple perspectives.
-
We built a website with label for product tracking and returns that could be linked to the Niaga products: the person scanning the label could request a service or schedule a product return and check the product history.
-
To visualize the return system and provide visual support for product explanation, we animated a video that explains the return process.
To tie all deliverables together, we created a full business model canvase where all important facettes were pointed out for an efficient logitstics system to exist and realize the product return flow that is currently missinng from Niaga's stakeholder map.
QUARTILE 3
By the start of the closing quartile, Niaga's headoffice and first production line for the panel industry was ready. With this milestone reached, clients would frequently come to visit for demonstrations of what they'd be purchasing from Niaga – resulting in the ask from the project team for an “experience center”. The creation of this experience center could aid the adoption of the Niaga products and provide a more coherent experience with the story Niaga presents to the world.
