F2008-10-002
A Systematic Approach to Sustainable Design of Car Seat Assembly Using the Modified Qualitiy Function Deployment Method
Today there are over 600 million vehicles on the world´s roads with another 60,000,000 new vehicles produced each year worldwide. The scale of the automotive industry is enormous and far reaching. It is estimated that around two thirds of world´s oil output goes to transportation whereby road vehicles alone consume around 40%. The automotive industry uses approximately 15% of the world´s steel, 40% of the world´s rubber and 25% of the world´s glass, with the consumption of raw materials and other resources further growing due to the rapid development of the automotive sector in China and India. In addition, transportation accounts for around 25% of greenhouse emissions worldwide, whereby 90% of transport related emissions come from road vehicles, predominantly cars. Clearly, current levels of consumption and emissions are unsustainable. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that sustainability considerations including environmental, economic and social are systematically addressed in vehicle design and development targeting all aspects of the vehicle system.
This paper will present a systematic approach to sustainable design of a car seat assembly using the modified Quality Function Deployment method as an integrating medium for stakeholder requirements and technical targets (including LCA, LCC etc.). Car seats represent a critical element of the vehicle system, due to the wide range of functions and requirements that they are required to meet. These include adjustability of driver position, ergonomics/comfort, aesthetics, safety, etc. Additionally, there are increasing demands by OEM´s for higher quality and better performance at reduced cost, weight, time to market etc. Furthermore, in addition to the stakeholder requirements derived from customer and market trends there is a need to address several environmental directives in the development of the car seat and automotive systems in general. There is much evidence that such wide range of complex requirements cannot be met without a systematic knowledge based engineering design approach supported by the implementation of effective design tools and methods.
The particular design methodology presented in this paper derived from a research and development project focusing on the sustainable design of a car seat assembly in collaboration with the manufacturer. Environmental assessment of the existing car seat assembly has been conducted using the LCA software GaBi has been implemented in order to obtain the environmental "DNA" of this type of system. In addition, this provided a basis for LCC analysis and LCM planning in general. The considerations and targets resulting from this work have been systematically integrated within a modified Quality Function Deployment matrix. This has enabled identification of the key design specification for a new sustainable product, outlining competitive advantages, design intents and directions/guidelines that have been used subsequently throughout the design and development process of new products.