1,720,964 research outputs found
Maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams
No full textIn our Integrated Product Design master at the Delft faculty of Industrial Design Engineering we see a growing diversity in our student population. Besides a growing number of different nationalities there are also significant differences in prior education, competences, and socioemotional aspects. Within the Advanced Embodiment Design (AED) course, students work in teams on a client-based design project for one full semester. In 2018-2019, 22 student-teams started out their endeavour, coached by eight coaches. Within the course an important learning objective we want to offer students is the opportunity to experience and perform in a successful team, acknowledge all students' input, and experience a successful result. During the process of embodiment design, the project teams come across several hurdles which challenges team performance and their project progress, and thereby influences the project results. To maximise the performance of student design-teams we have conducted two studies researching the challenges these teams come across over the course of the semester. One study was based on the coaches' experiences during the project (Flipsen & Persaud, 2016), and the other one on the students' individual reflections on the project (Flipsen, Persaud & Magyari, 2021). The challenges our students come across are analysed and relate to becoming a team, doing the project right, and finalising the project successfully. The results of both studies are used to develop a framework supporting coaches in maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams. The framework is built around the Theory U (Scharmer 2016), a model describing how teams work with each other, following the right path to success (presencing) or off-tracking by muddling through, or by absencing. To track the different team's performances, we use a project-group tracking-system existing of seven Key Performance Indicators combined with a coach journal. The combination of KPI's help the team of coaches to pinpoint lower performing teams and intervene when needed. In this paper we will present the framework, consisting of (i) preparatory activities to initiate trust, teambuilding, and a successful student cooperation, (ii) a system to track the student-teams' health and performance and pinpoint troublesome groups, and (iii) responsive activities related to the hurdles teams might come across and how to reverse them. To assist the individual coach, we have developed several responsive activities the coach can use to intervene, slowing down the process of dysfunctionality and revert the process towards highly performing teams. The activities are tested in the two cohorts following our initial studies in 2018-2019.Circular Product DesignDesign for Sustainabilit
iFixit Coffee Maker: How we can provide the right tools and right knowladge to improve the maintenance and repair of full automatic coffee makers within the EU
No full textThis project focuses on how we can provide consumers with the right tools and the right knowledge so that they can take care of their coffee makers. The final outcome of this project is a toolkit that includes all the necessary items for maintenance and repair and a website to help consumers through the fault diagnosis process (i.e. help them find out what is wrong with their coffee maker).Integrated Product Desig
Enhancing Consumer Product Repairability: A case study on vacuum cleaners
No full textThe European Commission pointed out in 2015, with “An EU action plan for the Circular Economy”, the importance of energy and resource preservation, by respecting Earth’s resilience and renewability (European Commission, 2015). A transition towards Circular Economy is necessary in this sense to create new sustainable advantages, protecting businesses from future potential resource scarcity and boosting the economy. In order to enable this transition, the way products are designed must change by taking into account product life-extension, reuse, refurbishing and recycling. In recent years, Philips has expressed a growing interest in circular economy, becoming global partner of the Ellen MacArthur foundation (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017), and setting the target “Healthy people, sustainable planet”, committing itself to reach 15% of turnover coming from solution respecting circular principles by 2020 (Philips.com, 2016). This pushed the company to investigate the current state of their product portfolio and new ways of designing consumer goods. In this sense, product repairability and disassembly represent some of the most important design requirements in order to enable circular business models. Carried out in collaboration with the company, this research project practically investigates design features which influence positively and negatively product repairability, eventually proposing new design guidelines and methodologies for design for repairability and product retirement. The European Commission Joint Research Centre released in 2019 a Scoring Assessment System for Repair and Upgrade of Products (Cordella et al., 2019). This system has been applied on seven consumer products, part of the vacuum cleaners product group, assessing more than 260 disassembly operations. Firstly, insights gathered during this analysis have resulted in a list of practical design recommendation for the manufacturer and remarks on the assessment system itself. Additionally, a new design tool for product architecture mapping, called Disassembly Map, was created. This is an effective method to represent the architecture of a product, showing disassembly depth of all the product components and the intricate logic connections which link them to each other. The most important components for product repairability and retirement are spotted using special indicators, guiding the attention of designers towards these products’ “hot-spot”.This design tool, together with the insights collected from the repairability assessment, were tested by redesigning a representative consumer product, together with the Philips I&D department. During this process, the following design methodologies have been explored: Redesign for disassembly time optimization through clumping methodology, Redesign for hotspot components accessibility through bottom-up assembly, Redesign for legislation compliance and use of common tools and Redesign for sequential independent disassembly and safer self-repairs. The results achieved convinced the manufacturer to define together new serviceability design requirements, which will be implemented in the development of future Philips canister vacuum cleaners. This research concludes suggesting new assessment values for a discrete rating system of canister vacuum cleaners, which could be used by the European Commission Joint Research Centre for possible future iterations of the Scoring System for Repair and Upgrade of Products.Integrated Product Desig
Aesthetic durability & Repair
No full textEach year, over 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is generated globally, with the Netherlands averaging more than 20 kg per capita (Compendium voor de Leefomgeving, 2023). The shift from a linear to a circular economy is crucial in addressing this issue, emphasizing the importance of durability and repairability in product design. Additionally, the forthcoming legislation from the European Commission (2023) regarding the “right to repair” highlights the need for designers to create products that are both durable and repairable. This project delves into a product’s durability, considering not only its physical repairability, but also how it can retain aesthetic value over time. Central to this exploration is the question: “How can appliances be re-designed for retainment, considering repairability and aesthetic durability?” Drawing upon literature research, a design space is formulated, guiding the several re-designs of the same appliance, in this case a sandwich maker, with each re-design focusing on a specific aspects of repairability and aesthetic durability theory. Evaluation of these re-designs by visitors at Dutch Design Week informed challenges, guiding the further development of one of the re-designs into a functional prototype. The literature review addresses repairability through the challenge of fault diagnosis, particularly as products are often perceived as ‘black boxes’. Practical design implications for improving ease of disassembly and part replacement, alongside the value of awareness of components in having a product repaired, are discussed. Aesthetic durability is explored from the perspectives of ‘living with things’ and the ‘life of things’. The former examines aesthetic pleasure from a multisensory point of view, and the role of familiarity and novelty in design. The latter discusses the dimension of temporality in product design throughout a product’s lifetime, and the concept of products becoming ‘things’ when they break down. The construction of a design space with three axes based on this theory—’the possibility to repair’, ‘our pleasure as users’, and ‘the life of the thing itself’—provides a framework for creating eight diverse prototypes reflecting various perspectives from the theory. Evaluation by 3010 Dutch Design Week visitors identifies one prototype, featuring an ‘oven mitt’-like top, as standing out for its emotional qualities such as ‘connection’ and ‘beauty.’ This re-design is selected for further development into a functional prototype, highlighting repairability improvements and offering the opportunity for ergonomic testing.Integrated Product Desig
Mechanically Storing Renewable Energy at a Residential Scale
No full textToday, more and more households are generating their own solar power. This helps us to come closer to a circular economy, since less fossil fuels are required to meet our energy needs. However, excessively generated energy is often wasted, since transporting or storing it for later use is challenging. Lithium ion batteries provide a solution, however their short lifespan and environmental problems that are caused during production make them far from green.A mechanical storage system was proposed, minimizing the environmental problems of Li-ion while providing the household with a storage solution for excessively generated solar energy. After exploring multiple energy storage methods and analyzing their potential suitability to residential energy supply & demand, Flywheel Energy Storage was chosen as the applied storage technology due to its high energy density and mainly mechanical components.ScriptEssential calculations were extended into a full simulation script, used to analyze different scenarios of use. It is capable of the following:• Confirming chosen rotor dimensions• Determining required rotational speed• Characterization of rotor losses & spin-down times • Characterization of torque losses• Reading supply/demand data from external source • Visualizing 24h supply/demand/storage profilePrototypeThe script was partially validated using a functional model and performing tests concerning spin-down times with two different rotors and vacuum levels.LEFtAs a final deliverable, a full mechanical storage system was designed. LEFt, which stands for Leftover Energy Flywheel technology, is a mechanical battery that stores an excess of residential solar power in the form of kinetic energy by spinning a flywheel in a vacuum. It comes in three main form factors; Flat, Slender and Extra Slender. These types all suit different scenarios and therefore different households. LEFt was designed using a subsystem approach to cope with all co-dependent aspects of the system.The most essential part, the flywheel rotor, was dimensioned according to the script.RotorDifferent versions of LEFt include differently dimensioned rotors. A large height over radius ratio makes LEFt suitable for short term storage. It can be applied to store electricity that is generated during the afternoon for evening use.Changing the application and storage limit result in different configurations and dimensions. A rotor with a small height over radius ratio can be suitable for longer term storage. A setup with a certain supply & demand makes this type potentially capable of 24h storage and might allow off-the-grid living in the future.SuspensionThe flywheel rotor is suspended nearly frictionless in the vacuum, by levitating it using a magnetic bearing system.The main vertical thrust is supplied by a Halbach Array of passive magnets, whereas radial displacement is corrected by two Active Magnetic Bearings that are handled by an advanced control system.Motor/GeneratorDriving the rotor and regenerating electricity is done by one machine; an electric motor that is positioned outside the vacuum. Using a single phase motor allows easy installation without the need for a transformer.Magnetic couplerTo drive the rotor from outside the vacuum, a magnetic coupler was designed, making use of two discs with a pattern of passive magnets. A control system allows smart coupling and decoupling, resulting in a freely spinning rotor in idle situations.Vacuum housingEnclosing the flywheel rotor is done by a depressurized housing.This has proven to reduce resistances, increasing storage times and therefore the applicability to longer term storage.Market implementationSelling LEFt is done best by a lease plan, in collaboration with solar panel suppliers. The full retail price of over €10,000 will be too high for a one-time investment.Sustainability assessmentThe environmental impact of the design is done by comparing it to a competing lithium ion battery. The results of an Eco Audit show that the impact of LEFt is lower, but still significant because of the large amounts of steel that are needed. ConclusionA conceptual design for a flywheel energy storage system was proposed and partially validated. It was concluded to be a better alternative for lithium ion batteries in residential energy storage, since it minimizes social and environmental problems. Further development and extensive analysis is required to fully validate and make the design ready for production.Integrated Product Desig
Creating an easy-to-use tool for (re)designing repairable products
No full textThis project aims to develop an easy-to-use method to (re)design products for ease of disassembly and subsequently for circular strategies, such as repair, refurbish, remanufacture, etc. Improving repairability is one of the first steps in decreasing the environmental impact of products by prolonging their technical lifespan. This thesis focuses on two separate tools that have the potential to be integrated: the Hotspot Mapping tool and the Disassembly Map. Both tools assess a product by disassembling it into its core parts and recording the properties of the parts and the disassembly steps (Fazio & et al., 2021; Flipsen et al., 2020).The Hotspot Mapping tool highlights parts and disassembly activities that are important due to their failure rate, functionality, disassembly effort, and environmental and economic impact. On the other hand, the Disassembly Map uses these highlighted features to create a visual representation of the product architecture. Since the inputs for both tools are similar, it raises the question of whether it is possible to link them together.The tools are analysed by literature review and usability questionnaires, resulting in a usability score of the original tool and strengths and weaknesses in terms of features and usability. Through an iterative approach, a new tool is developed, that uses a node/edge lists data structure to describe the product architecture of a product. This data-structure allows for the automatic generation of a dynamic Disassembly Map (Figure 1) in the visualisation software program yEd Graph Editor. The dynamic Disassembly Map allows designers to select which properties to display and which to hide, enabling focused attention and a better overview.Through user testing the new method has been proven to offer increased usability, requiring less time to fill in, and an overall preference by all usability test participants over the original Hotspot Mapping and Disassembly Map tools.Integrated Product Desig
The Cost of Ownership Tool: The Quantitative spreadsheet-based Cost of Ownership Tool, with an accompanying labelling scheme
No full textThis Thesis report covers the creation and validation of a spreadsheet-based self-declared quantitative cost of ownership tool. The accompanying labelling Scheme informs customers about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their products with a focus on the Repair Costs. The Total Cost of Ownership Tool (TCOT) offers customers a better comparative potential with regard to the longevity of products. The tool distinguishes itself from currently existing initiatives and tools for it provides a quantitative scoring of the cost of ownership and repair. This quantitative scoring is detrimental to the fair comparison of products. Previously existing tools mainly provided a qualitative grading. For this concept to work product manufacturers will be obliged by legislative organs to fill in the TCOT to get a corresponding label that needs to be displayed at the place of purchase. The tool in return provides the manufacturers with valuable data on how to improve their products. The newly obtained quantitative data can be used by legislators to assess the progress of longevity of products to assess the effectiveness of the newly adopted TCOT legislations. To explore this solution space the cost of ownership and repair needed to be expressed in a mathematical formula. Thereafter the factors that influence the variables in this formula needed to be quantitatively expressed. One major qualitative element however remained. The grading of the chance of a successful repair was performed by including conditions and criteria of the French Repairability Index (FRI). The development of the tool relied on iterative cycles of performing case studies with data on smartphones. The early iteration cycles revealed that small variations in the input variables resulted in significant differences in the outputs. Not only was the available literature on some of these variables limited. Often sources provided contradicting figures making conclusive results difficult to obtain. To test the technical aspects of the tool and assess the individual impacts of the input variables, different scenarios were explored. This provided insights into how the tool deals with the varying input data. The outcome of these tests fell within the bounds of expectation and revealed what further steps need to be undertaken to further develop the TCOT.The quantitative display of these often unknown and intangible ownership costs provides the customer with the information that she needs to better be able to choose a longer-lasting product. This newly acquired transparency towards the customer can help legislators nudge manufacturers into producing longer-lasting products. The further development of the tool and its accompanying label scheme will help with the transition towards the envisioned circular European Union by 2050Integrated Product Desig
A circular design process: The Potential to Value Circle: Connecting potential to create value in a circular economy
No full textIn this graduation project the design process: the Potential to Value Circle, for designing from a waste stream is presented. The Potential to Value Circle creates a structured way of working in which the potential of a waste stream is translated to value. Value is generated by combining the perspectives of material, stakeholders and context around a waste stream into a concept direction. Through this process, The Bin guides their clients to take the next steps in becoming part of a circular economy. This project was done in collaboration with The Bin. The Bin is a startup in the circular economy. They help their clients to become part of a circular economy by creating circular concepts out of their waste streams and setting up a circular system around these concepts. These waste streams can be defined as products at their end-of-life or by-products from a production line.Currently, the Bin bases its process on the circular frameworks the Value Hill (Achterberg et al., 2016), R9-list (Potting et al., 2017) and the Butterfly diagram (EllenMacArthur Foundation, 2019). These frameworks give the bin a high-level overview of circular value creation. However, they want to have a more step by step process that helps to turn waste streams into circular concepts. This was the essence of their request for this graduation project and resulted in the Potential to Value Circle.The Potential to Value Circle approaches a waste stream from different perspectives, resulting in opportunities that get turned into a concept direction that uses the waste stream to move towards a circular economy. The Potential to Value Circle is built up in three phases, 1) Analysis, 2) Combining, and 3) Circular design goal. The first phase presents how an understanding of the elements around a waste stream can be created, by analysing material, stakeholders and context. Based on this, potentials are formulated. In phases 2 and 3, the potentials of phase 1 are combined, which allows translating the potentials of the waste stream into opportunities. With these opportunities, a concept direction is formulated that creates value. Three ways of applying the Potential to Value Circle are presented, on which the Workshop is elaborated further. The workshop shows how to work in three hours with the Potential to Value Circle to a circular design goal with the client.Integrated Product Desig
Improving repairability in cordless vacuum cleaners
No full textThe incentive of this graduation project was to determine the repairability of Philips cordless vacuum cleaners and propose strategies to improve their repairability. This was done using two assessment methods; the Disassembly map and the French Repairability Index (FRI). The French Repairability Index is the first mandatory repair label. The final outcomes of this project are an assessment of two Philips cordless vacuum cleaners, a tool which provides guidance during FRI assessment (The adapted Disassembly Map) and design guidelines on how to design for FRI.Design for Interactio
Airguard Circular Ski-Helmet: A Vision for Transitioning Ski-Helmets into the Circular Economy and its Systems of Maintaining, Increasing & Regaining Product Value
No full textThis thesis project aims at exploring the challenges of sustainability within the segment of ski-helmets. It should lead to locating opportunities for transitioning them into the Circular Economy.Ski-helmets are single-impact items, comprised of multiple different materials in inseparable product assemblies that prevent disassembly and recyclability. They are discarded after critical impacts, when safety critical parts fail. This also happens, when product parts with crucial perceived value deteriorate visually or fail to fit current fashion trends. Facilitating repair or refurbishment is currently obstructed through certifications and future developments seem promising but unsure. After discarding, helmets are not recycled, which leads to the loss of resources, energy and value.Different ski-helmets were analysed on their ease of disassembly and their environmental impact using tools like HotSpot-Mapping, Disassembly Maps and Life Cycle Assessment. A survey and interviews were conducted for gaining insights into user-behaviour and expertise in ski-helmets and beyond.The project’s outcome is a visionary concept for transitioning ski-helmets into the Circular Economy — the Airguard concept. The proposal includes a novel approach on energy-management, rather than using single-impact EPS-foam. A system of TPU air-vessels enables the absorption of multiple impacts and the structure can be easily restored through remanufacturing.The Airguard concept is developed to fit into processes like recycling and remanufacturing. It is integrated into an assembly base with less different materials used, enabling product disassembly and improved access to parts with high impact, embedded energy and economic value — The priority parts. The assembly base includes the possibility to change parts which subject to deterioration, like visors and soft-liners. Additionally, it provides a modular base for product add-ons and upgrades, increasing usability, flexibility and longevity.After the product’s end of use, an incentive take-back system should enable retrieving used products to regain their value through recycling and remanufacturing. As an intermediate step, the Eco-Savor concept was developed, focusing on recycling, while using the same assembly base as the Airguard concept, built around a core of trusted EPS. As a stepping stone, it should be used to improve product architecture and for gathering insights on part durability for later remanufacturing. A roadmap was developed to indicate development steps over the timeline of six years.In the end, both concepts should stand as a vision towards sustainability, with many features to further explore and the possibility to gradually decrease environmental impact in ski-helmets.Integrated Product Desig
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