Final Design Report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oDdlwBpZw9lh2f8Y1YKHe7ZUr1_J8AuP/view?usp=sharing

Problem

During our course 'Design for X' at Lund University in Sweden, we were given the task of designing a cheap and expensive version of a golf cart, accounting for different 'X's'. We faced several challenges in the design process, including balancing cost and environmental impact, as well as ensuring manufacturability and assembly efficiency.

Solution

The team's approach to the solution involved multiple phases and methodologies:

Agile Development:

The project was structured into three sprints, each with specific tasks and priorities.
A project backlog was created at the beginning, which was regularly updated and prioritized.
Sprint reviews were conducted to assess progress and make necessary adjustments.

Design for Environment (DfE):

The team adhered to the 10 golden rules of eco-design, such as minimizing toxic substances, promoting repair and upgrading, and using high-quality materials.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was utilized to evaluate the environmental impacts throughout the product's life cycle, from material extraction to disposal.

Design for Manufacturing/Assembly (DfMA):

The product design was simplified to reduce manufacturing and assembly costs.
An emphasis was placed on open communication between design and manufacturing teams to avoid the "over the wall" design approach.
Various design iterations were made to optimize for manufacturability and ease of assembly.

Design for Cost (DfC):

Target costing was employed to ensure the product met market price expectations while achieving the required profit margins.
The cost considerations influenced material choices and assembly locations, balancing between DfE and DFMA requirements.

Key Design Decisions and Impacts:

Material Selection:

Deciding on a material to use had impacts on many of the DfX’s. While some constraints were fixed, such as needing a low-weight material that could last the desired number of golf rounds, we also had constraints that could be changed, such as the cost of the materials or their manufacturability. While we knew we needed plastic due to its ease of manufacturing, we were conflicted between stainless steel and aluminium for the remainder of our product. Our research showed that aluminium had worse effects on the environment, but was also cheaper and easier to manufacture. On the other hand, stainless steel was longer lasting and is a more sustainable material. Due to its low-density, and other factors such as its benefits for Design for Cost and Design for Manufacturability, our team ultimately chose aluminium as our material of choice for our carts.

Assembly Location:

Our team struggled with choosing a location where the assembly and packaging of our products would take place. Upon some research, we found that China would be some of the cheapest places to conduct this process, we also found that they failed to enforce good ethical standards or environmental impacts. Though hosting the assembly in Asia would improve our design’s cost, it would have dramatic effects on the Design for Environment. Not only are warehouses more likely to be more poorly moderated from an environmental emissions standpoint, but due to their location from our primary target customers in Sweden and the EU, the increased transportation adds dramatically to the negative environmental impacts. Our team also wanted to implement CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) to make sure the company contributes to a better society and cleaner environment. Due to Sweden’s increased moderation of labour laws, its extensive use of renewable energy, along with its closer proximity to target customers, we decided to establish our primary assembly and storage warehouse in Sweden.

Product Design Structure:

While iterating upon designs for our Cart Cheap and Cart Exclusive, we wanted to maintain a common fundamental for both products . By keeping consistent parts across both products, we could improve the mass manufacturing of the components, which would also have great benefits for the cost of our products. When deciding on an ideal method for assembling structural components, we had to decide between using screws and having clipping features on the components. Having screws would improve the manufacturability of the parts, since the parts would have far less complex features. On the flip side, using clips instead of screws would save a lot of time during the assembly process, which would ultimately also have great savings on the labour costs for our products as well. Having fewer unique components in our design would also benefit the environment, as fewer parts would have to travel to our assembly site, reducing transportation emissions. Due to the trade-offs between manufacturability, assembly, and the environment, our team chose to scrap all screws from our design, and keep a streamlined clip-based model, integrating clipping features onto all major assembly points.

Design for X Project - Golf Cart Development