Development of portable unit for the coffee industry

Sammanfattning: The project is executed along with the course “Degree of Bachelor of Science in innovation and design engineering”. The course takes part at the faculty of Health, Science and Technology at Karlstad University. The employer is in the coffee industry with a focus on the professional market. The company wishes to complete its product range with a new unit for the coffee industry. The technology behind the aid has already been developed by the company, of which the bachelor thesis concerns the design and construction of the product. By agreement with the company, the product's function will not be exposed in the report. The work follows the design process from start to finish including a project plan, pre-study, product specification, concept generation, configuration and prototype development. A large part of the work relates to the pre-study that has been conducted. The study is divided into two branches, one of which aims to chart the process of product development. The second purpose of the study is to answer how the product can be designed to reflect the company brand, current trends, human ergonomics and the cognitive understanding of the user. The pre-study does also aim to chart which stakeholders should be considered when developing the product. The process has been adapted to the fact that the product's function cannot be exposed to people who are not in direct contact with the project. As the product is new in the product range it does also lack precursor and known users. Due to these facts the company itself has had a very high influence in the decision making of the product´s final design. Therefore, trend and user analyses have been performed to broaden the understanding of the need that will be posed by the actual user. The final concept is a suggestion of how an exclusive variant of the unit may look. Potential end users of the product are almost everyone in the coffee industry, where the spectrum extends from waiters to the more skilled technician at a vending company which means that the unit will be used from once a year to each day. Thus, the design of the product is held simple to ease the cognitive understanding of the product regardless of user. The main materials in the product are aluminium and wood. The size of the device is selected to be ergonomically easy to handle and grip. The dimensioning is also motivated by the thought of giving a solid and stable expression. Complementary to the product a box has been developed to easy transportation of the product. The development of this type of product requires an understanding that the product does not work alone but acts in a context. In addition to its function, it acts as a service both for operator and customer by generating a certain type off experience. Today´s coffee and barista industry offer more than just receiving a cup of coffee, where identity and trends are important in addition to the taste of the cup itself.