Resource efficient packaging solutions for heat pumps

Sammanfattning: This report is done as master thesis for the education mechanical engineering with emphasis on sustainable and innovative product development. The master thesis is done in collaboration with the company CTC which is a part of Enertech AB. The purpose of the project is to develop a new solution to their packaging of heat pumps. The methodology used to develop the new packaging is design thinking which keeps the stakeholders in focus during the whole project. The result for the new packaging is a solution based on corrugated board which is better in both a sustainable aspect, economically and overall handling of the product. The new packaging will remove the current possibility of stacking multiple heat pumps on top of each other. The new packaging will although be able to stack one pair of the outside module (EcoAir) to optimize transport capacity. The sustainability analysis is done using OpenLCA which is a free software and the analysis has been done on both the current packaging and the new packaging that is proposed during this project. The result from this life cycle assessments is that the new packaging will reduce environmental impact drastically. The new concept is also more cost efficient for the company as it will show that an investment of approximately 500 000 SEK will payoff in less than seven months with the newsolution. The new packaging can be seen as a good packaging solution for bigger products like these since there are multiple advantages to other types of packaging solutions. The new solution will be presented in the result chapter of this report with pictures of a prototype that was made during the project. The process of assembling the prototype to the heat pump is also described with both text and pictures. Background: In the background there will be some necessary information aboutthe project and about the tools that was used. The background will include someinformation about the current packaging as well. Objectives: The objectives for this thesis is to develop a new packaging for heatpumps. The new packaging will heavily rely on on sustainability and economics. Method: The methodology used for the project is a design thinking approach.Which is heavily focused on the different stakeholders. The method has many goodtools to promote new designs and innovations. Results: The result is a new packaging made out of corrugated board. The LCAindicated that the new packaging is more environmentally sustainable. The pay offcalculation displays a pay off time that translates into about six to seven months. Conclusions: The new packaging is a more resource efficient solution and the changewould be desirable as it would also result in a higher safety. To continue the work itwould need further testing as well as an extensive risk analysis.