Metaverse in the Product Lifecycle Annika Hauptvogel, Head of Technology & Innovation Management at Siemens traced the applications of the metaverse across the lifecycle of a product: The Design Phase: In this phase, companies could experiment with different designs to visualize in the virtual world how customers might use a product. They could use the information they gain to refine their designs. The first advantage of virtual design is that it reduces the use of resources, compared to all that would be required to build a prototype and test it in the real world. Building prototypes in virtual environments is physics-based, which is why those products would work exactly the way they would in the real world. Secondly, the virtual design phase takes much less time to execute, resulting in a shorter time-to-market. Third, the metaverse facilitates collaboration; virtual environments can be designed to bring all those involved together, including users, design experts and members from maintenance teams. The design phase also incorporates inventory management of the bill of materials for raw materials and components or sub-assemblies. It offers a chance to do sustainability checks on materials or processes such as their environment-friendliness or cost optimization; those goals can now be factored in from the start.