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Portable electronic devicesSmartphone ☎️Laptop 💻Textile productsJeans 👖
Draw upon established methodologies and benchmarksContribute to the global conversation on electronics repairabilityMake meaningful comparisons between Thai market conditions and international standardsValidate the R-Score methodology against recognized assessment approachesTextiles represent a significant consumption category for Thai consumersClothing items often have potential for repair but are frequently discarded insteadRCTH has developed expertise in textile repair through ongoing collaboration with the Reviv CommunityFew, if any, formal repairability assessments have been conducted for clothing itemsPortable Electronics: Often feature miniaturized components, glued assemblies, and proprietary partsTextiles: Present unique material challenges and often rely on different repair techniques than electronics
RCTH R-Score
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6. Product Coverage & Selection
6.1 Product coverage
For the inaugural implementation of the RCTH Repairability Score, two product categories have been selected, and, within each category, two products are selected for the assessment. Thus, there are four products in total. These are:
Selection rationale
The selection of these product categories was guided by several strategic considerations:
✔️ Building on Established Frameworks
The first category—portable electronic devices—were selected because they have been thoroughly studied in existing repairability assessment frameworks internationally. This allows RCTH to:
✔️ Pioneering New Assessment Areas
The inclusion of textiles (jeans and shoes) represents an innovative expansion of repairability assessment beyond the traditional focus on electronics. This category was selected for several reasons:
✔️ Representing Diverse Repair Challenges
Each selected category presents distinct repair challenges:
By assessing these varied categories, RCTH aims to develop a robust framework that can eventually be applied across an even wider range of consumer products.
✔️ Common products in household consumption
Regarding the specific product selection in each category, they are selected because they represent some of the products that is commonly consumed in every household.
6.2 Selected brands & models for case studies
Within each product category, several well-known brands and models were selected for the sake of giving examples, showcasing the application of the assessment framework and methodology, while balancing the amount of products with the limited capacity that us volunteers can work with. Some brands have more than two products chosen because we want to showcase that there can be differences in the repairability even among the products of the same brand.
Additionally, since Thai market does not have product brands that display exceptional performance in term of repairability in all product categories, RCTH objectively selected one or two more brand and model with high repairability performance as a case study (except for TVs as no exceptional brand was found).
The selected brands and models assessed in this initial R-Score implementation include:
Product category
Product
Brand
Model
Portable electronic devices
14
Phone
6
Apple
iPhone 14
Apple
iPhone 16
Samsung
Galaxy S23 Ultra
Google (Pixel)
Pixel 7
Google (Pixel)
Pixel 9
Fairphone
Fairphone 5
Laptop
8
Apple
MacBook Pro 16″ 2019
Apple
MacBook Pro 14″ (M1) 2021
HP
Elitebook x360 1040 G5
HP
HP EliteBook 850 G5
Lenovo
ThinkPad T14 Gen 3
Lenovo
ThinkPad T14 Gen 5
Microsoft
Surface Laptop 3 15″
Microsoft
Surface Laptop 7 15”
Textile products
4
Jeans
4
UNIQLO
UNIQLO EZY Ultra Stretch Jeans
Levi
Levi's® Men's 501® Original Shrink-to-Fit™ Selvedge Jeans
Nudie jeans
Nudie Jeans Lean Dean
Patagonia
Patagonia Men's Straight Fit Jeans - Regular
This diverse selection of product categories provides a solid foundation for establishing the RCTH R-Score as a comprehensive repairability assessment tool, while also allowing for future expansion into additional product categories as the methodology matures.
6.3 Materiality analysis
Not every product will find all 12 assessment criteria relevant to the same degree. Depending on the product, some criteria might not be applicable due to the functionality of the product itself. Therefore, a materiality analysis is required in order to identify relevant assessment criteria for each product.
The table below shows the result of the analysis. In each product (column with emojis), criteria with high relevance to repairability are identified as H , while those with medium and low relevance are identified as
M and L , respectively. The explanation for the criteria identified as less relevant can be read in the “Rationale” column (click to expand).
Repairability Aspects
Assessment criteria
☎️
💻
👖
Rationale
1. Product design for repairability and upgradability
3
1.1 Design for long-lasting
H
H
H
Open
1.2 Design for ease of disassembly
H
H
L
Open
1.3 Universal design
H
H
L
Open
2. Repair support & services
3
2.1 Product guarantee coverage & length
H
H
H
Open
2.2 Repair services
H
H
H
Open
2.3 Public communication encouraging product repairing
H
H
H
Open
3. Documentation & support information
2
3.1 Documentation of product's component, composition, and product caring
H
H
H
Open
3.2 Access to the repair guideline
H
H
M
Open
4. Accessibility to spare parts
2
4.1 Availability of the spare parts throughout the life-span of a product
H
H
L
Open
4.2 Market accessibility to the available spare parts
H
H
L
Open
5. Affordability of product repair
2
5.1 Affordability of the spare parts
H
H
L
Open
5.2 Affordability of the brand’s repair services
H
H
H
Open
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