The properties of a product can be divided into three groups depending on their importance to the customer:
- Mandatory properties are the properties that the product must have to be considered a relevant alternative. These are the properties that should always be included in the functional unit. Example: a beverage container must not leak.
- Positioning properties are those considered attractive by the customer and can position the product more favorably with the customer compared to other products with the same mandatory properties. Example: a beverage container can be easier or more difficult to handle or have a desirable design.
- Irrelevant properties for the market that do not play a role in determining customer preferences. Example: a (rechargeable) beverage container can be easier or harder to clean.
Niche customers do not allow substitutions between products from different niches in the same market segment. The long battery life is an example of a positioning property in the general battery market, which has become a mandatory property for an identifiable group of niche consumers who place great value on avoiding frequent battery replacements. Both positioning and irrelevant market properties can be important for benchmark flows and thus for the environmental impact of the product system.
When analyzing the properties of a product, these can concern:
- Functionality, associated with the main function of the product
- Aesthetics, design, and appearance of the product
- Image (of the product or the manufacturer)
- Technical quality, such as stability, durability, ease of maintenance
- Additional services offered during use and disposal
- Costs related to purchase, use, and disposal
- Environmental properties specific
The primary services to the user are functionality, aesthetics, and image. Technical quality and additional services ensure the primary services during the expected product usage lifespan. The cost related to purchase is the only property that can be expressed in well-defined terms. Technical quality and functionality are generally less well-defined but still quantifiable. Other properties, such as aesthetics and image, cannot be directly measured but must still be described qualitatively. Some of these properties may appear completely irrational because they are not inherent in the product itself but are shaped by the buyer's perception and can depend on differences in the buying or usage situation, or on age, gender, education, status, "culture", or customer attitudes. These properties can be strongly influenced by the supplier's marketing activities. A mundane example of this is the designs of mineral water bottles ranging from simple to very sophisticated.
The purpose of LCA is to study the environmental impacts of products, and it is not possible to state in advance that the products studied have general properties such as "environmentally friendly" or "nontoxic". If environmental properties are included as mandatory, they must be specific properties to allow evaluation before the life cycle assessment study. An example is meeting the limit values for some toxic compounds in construction materials. Which of the above-mentioned properties are mandatory depends on the market situation. Information about mandatory properties for a specific market segment can be obtained from:
- the marketing departments of companies providing products to the market segment,
- retailers,
- industrial organizations,
- industrial research institutions and sector consultants,
- regulatory authorities and standardization bodies,
- marketing and consumer research institutes.
Issues governed by national and international legislation and standards are generally mandatory properties.
In some situations, the amount of product replaced or interaction with other product systems may be determined by non-mandatory properties. For example, the ease of cleaning of a beverage container (an irrelevant market property) can influence the amount of detergent used. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically analyze all product properties and assess for each whether it leads to differences in the amount of replaced product or interaction with other product systems. Especially when studying intermediate products, components, or products dependent on other products, there is a risk of choosing too narrow a product perspective and thus neglecting mandatory properties defined outside of it. For example, for the group of "chairs" products, it may be relevant to investigate whether there are other ways to provide seating support or if there are external constraints because chairs are only a component of a complete interior solution for the office.
Application Example - Office Chair
(Source Weidema B P (2014), Example – product properties of a computer workstation chair. Version: 2014-01-10)
Product, activity, or generic name
Office chair for computer workstation
Context
This example is limited to the geographic market of office chairs in Denmark. The office chair market is segmented at a regional level, meaning that chairs sold in Europe are almost exclusively produced in Europe, with additional sub-national markets, so that most chairs sold in Denmark are manufactured in Denmark. Regarding the customer segment, the computer workstation chair is intended for workers who mostly sit and work behind a terminal, such as a computer, for a significant part of the day (at least two hours a day).
Mandatory Properties
Five functional and technical properties have been identified as mandatory for the chair, namely: seat height and tilt, backrest height and tilt, and armrest availability. Some of these properties are subject to specific legislative requirements. (Note that there are many other mandatory properties related to strength and safety that are general for all office chairs and are not specifically addressed here). For computer workstation chairs, their durability is largely taken for granted, i.e., a certain minimum lifespan (7-8 years) is implicitly considered a mandatory property. The actual difference in lifespan can vary, but it does not play a role as a positioning property since chairs are often replaced for reasons other than technical failures (e.g., office restructuring or technological developments).
Positioning Properties
Among the functional and technical properties of the chair, there are at least five properties, namely: adjustability of armrests, brakes on wheels and a choice between hard and soft wheels, adjustment of the angle between seat and backrest, adjustment of seat depth, and locking options.
Costs
Regarding costs, it is normally assumed that the price is approximately the same for all compared alternatives, so that the overall buyer's economy is not affected. In Denmark, this can be safely assumed, as the Danish public procurement service acts to stabilize prices.
Environmental Properties
In this example, no specific environmental properties have been noted.
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