Development of Sliding Mechanism for IKEA Furniture

Sammanfattning: This Master Thesis cover a product development process based on an investigation of an existing product at IKEA. A study regarding potential improvements of the existing low-cost roller slide was performed. The roller slide enables opening and closing of drawers in some of today’s IKEA furniture. The existing product contains of four metal plates where each plate has a plastic wheel attached by a rivet and a washer. Today’s solution fulfills all the technical requirements, but the perceived quality of the end consumer is considered being poor. The aim was to investigate potential improvements of the roller slide by improving the stability and decreasing the generated noise during use. The study was conducted at IKEA Components AB, a subsidiary company within the IKEA corporate group. An extensive pre-study including studying the existing product, similar and alternative solutions was performed to gain knowledge and inspiration. New design solutions as well as adjustments of the existing roller slide were considered. The number of ideas was narrowed down due to time and cost limits. In consultations with supervisors, the new design solutions were discarded. Concepts were generated, screened and evaluated based on tested prototypes. The remaining concepts were further developed and assessed based on a qualitative Blind Test. Two concepts were recommended as potential solutions to IKEA Components. One of the concepts, Concept C.1, consist of the current roller slide where the wheels on the drawer are fixed mounted and not able to rotate. The other concept, Concept C.1+, is a development of the first mentioned concept and the non-rotational wheels are replaced by plastic blocks. It is up to IKEA Components to evaluate whether they fulfil all their requirements. For future implementation, both concepts have to be further developed.