Trailer Equipment Design : Utveckling av verktygslåda för lastbilar

Sammanfattning: Thesis completed by Johan Arvidsson, Alex Rasooli and Pontus Winroth, students at master program Product development and Design at the School of Engineering in Jönköping Sweden. The project comprises 30 ECTS credits and was carried out during the semester in the autumn of 2007.It was carried out in cooperation with Eksjöverken AB, subcontractor within the truck industry with special knowledge within the area of complicated machinery construction work. Job initiators at Eksjöverken were Mats Svanberg and Kjell Nygard. Dag Holmgren was acting as a tutor from the university. The task was to develop tools for trucks, primary toolboxes but in case of time also under run protection. This was eventually supposed to generate greater market shares, which would result in an increased manufacturing volume. The goal was to be able to present a complete functional prototype at the end of January 2008, with a foundation for an eventual production.To be able to carry out the assignment with a structural approach and to make sure that once complied with the time plan the project was divided into three phases: the Idea-, Feasibility- and Implementation phase. Between every phase there was a milestone set up, also called gate, where important decisions were taken in cooperation with the company. The purpose of the gates was that decisions regarding direction had to be taken and also to secure advancement in the project. The daily work was carried out at the university with continuous visits at the company in Eksjö.The project resulted in a storage box called TED, Trailer Equipment Design, that is a new type of toolbox with purpose to ease for the driver in his/hers daily work. The new box is adjusted to the driver’s demands and needs and designed with a functional as well as aesthetic alignment. The interior offers a structured storage for the most frequently used tools and doesn’t allow any disorder. The exterior has been designed with shapes that give rise to a uniform expression together with the under run protection and the rest of the truck.As the project has been completed with an active cooperation between the project group and the employer throughout the whole process, both parts have had the chance to generate and evaluate ideas and thoughts. Eksjöverken have been able to follow the process from scratch until the very end, and they are aware of which direction the project has taken as well as which alternatives that has been available. In other terms the generated concept follows a line of argument where new ways of thinking combined with experience has been implemented to reach an optimal solution. The next steps in the development process will be to design the attachment between the storage box and the actual truck, and also to develop the needed tools for manufacturing. When these conditions have been fulfilled Eksjöverken will have a competitive product ready to meet the market.