Dr. ir. Flipsen, S.F.J.

Bas Flipsen is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, where he researches the field of circular product architecture design at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

Academic Background

As an educated aeronautical (Msc) and industrial design engineer (Msc) I find it interesting to apply the quantitative modelling in designing products.

Mathematics and conceptual quantification are the key to design "the first time right". For my PhD I have developed an algorithm which identifies the opportunity of fuel-cell systems applied in portable electronics by automated design of an unlimited number of structural variants by means of parametric design.

As a researcher at iFixit I researched and designed a method to assess and score the repairability of smart devices. This triggered my research on "Circular-Ready Design" where I focus on tools and methods which help in redesigning consumer products to fit in any circular strategy.

Specialties: Life Cycle Assessment; Life Cycle Thinking and Design; Ease of Dissembly assessment and redesign; design for repair, remanufacture and recycling; rethinking designs using quantitative conceptual modelling.
 

Education

• 2004 – 2010
  Delft University of Technology: PhD, Direct Methanol Fuel cell systems in portable electronics
• 1997 – 1999 
  Master of Science at TU Delft, Industrial Design Engineering. Two-year post-graduate design study. My graduation project was about designing a low-power close-in water heater using a heat pump.
• 1990 – 1997 
  Master of Science at TU Delft Aeronautical Design Engineering, graduated on the Design of a Quiet Short Take-off and Landing aircraft, using upper surface blowing.

Experience

• 2020 – 2022
  Comenius Teaching fellow, within this project we researched the diversity in team members, and how to deal with that as a coach. 
• 2014 – now
  Assistant professor at Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft
• 2018 – 2019
  a.i. Academic Director TeachingLab, TU Delft
• 2016 – 2019
  Senior Researcher at iFixit GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany
• 2016-2018
  As an Education Fellow I focussed my research in education on Sustainable Teaching, a combination of applying effective learning strategies in an efficient way. 
• 2012 – 2014
  Research professor Sustainable Product Development at the University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam
• 2002 – 2014
  Assistant professor at Design for Sustainabiliy, Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft
• 1999 – 2002
  Project leader at TNO Industrial Technologies (Delft, Eindhoven) 

Field of research

I am focusing on the inner circles of the Circular Economy, Repair and Refurbish. I develop tools and methods to assess products on its repairability together with iFixit and evaluate them with our students at IDE. Assessing products on the inner circles is the start for designers to improve and (r)evolutionary change products for a future without waste.

Lectures and/or coaches students on:

Repair! (5EC) master elective where students learn how to assess and redesign the product architecture of a real product. Studens work with research-based tools and methods to make the product circular-ready. 

Advanced Embodiment Design (21EC) where students work on a project for a full semester and get introduced to advanced knowledge on Ergonomics, Sustainability, Product Experience, Simulation tools and Future Electronics.

Demystify Green (3EC), elective where students critically assess a sustainable claim in the news.

Design for Sustainability (7,5EC), bachelor course where we introduce our students into the world of sustainable design.

Circular Product Design (3EC), elective course where we introduce our students to life-cycle thinking and loop thinking, designing out waste.

Understanding Product Engineering (5EC), bachelor course where IDE students are introduced to mechanics of materials, manufacturing, and product architecture design.

Secondary employment

iFixit GmbH: 1 day a week I work on the repairability scoring of portable electronic devices like smartphones and tablets