Facing Obsolescence: Component Repair and Collaboration in the Independent ICT Commercial Repair Sector

Abstract

Repairs are becoming more difficult to perform due to multiple factors, including obsolescence, complexity of designs, technological change and lack of information and spare parts. This underlines a conflict between repair and technological designs driven by accumulation logics that require increasing growth rates. Despite these challenges, independent repairers persist. This exploratory research addressed how repairers working with ICT equipment actively circumvent obstacles and barriers using technical and collaborative arrangements that have often been overlooked in most commercial repair analysis. This paper uses insights from a survey sent to independent commercial repairers in the region of Galicia (NUTS ES11). Insights show that repairers employ repair techniques, such as component repair, to avoid manufacturers' control while also using collaborative networks for information exchange, skill sharing and commercial cooperation. This reveals that the repair sector is more complex than previously assumed and more similar to other knowledge-intensive industries. Current repair policy insufficiently supports independent repairers and the tools they rely on. Ecodesign provisions so far have neglected component repair and the need for improved information and know-how transfer.