Special Focus Day: Seating Comfort - Monday, 9th February 2009

10:00 Chairman’s Welcome & Opening Address:

On research and development in the area of seating comfort – Methods, tests, tools

Dr.-Ing. Karl Siebertz
Technical Specialist, Biomechanics
Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH Germany

Market update – Gaining insights into international seat development

10:15 Market Trends In Seating And Their Acceptance Among The Customers

• How aware are customers of innovations in seating?
• How much are they willing to pay for new seat systems?
• Design, safety, comfort – What has the higher significance for the customer

Marcus Behrendt
Director Consulting
J.D. Power and Associates GmbH Germany

Successfully understanding and quantifying seating comfort

11:30 Development Of Seating Comfort At Audi

• How to successfully develop seating comfort
• Application of innovative virtual tools
• How to gain fundamental knowledge in seating comfort (presentation of a case study)

Dr.-Ing. Christian Mergl
Coordinator of the Comfort Team
Audi AG Germany

12:10 Application Of Methods To Evaluate Seat Vibration Damping – Case Study

• Comfort criteria related to the transmissibility function
• CAE and test methods including validation
• Case study: design parameters
• Presentation of case study results

Dr.-Ing. Karl Siebertz
Technical Specialist, Biomechanics
Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH, Germany

14:20 Asian Perception Of Comfort – Differences To Europe

• The way seat comfort is perceived in Europe and Asia
• What does the different perception mean for OEMs?
• Special focus India

Ravindra Jain
Manager Seat Design
Maruti Suzuki India, India

15:00 Quantification Of Discomfort

• Muscle fatigue and shear force on soft tissues
• Examples of measuring discomfort
• How results of wheelchair user test can help to develop innovative seats for healthy people
• Active motion system in car seats – A Ford development

John Rasmussen
Professor, PhD, The AnyBody Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Aalborg University Denmark

Scientifically proven comfort – How to develop the ideal seat

16:10 The Most Innovative Lounge Chair

• The latest methods to study comfort, including the unconscious user perception
• Application of knowledge in different design phases
• Scientifically proven comfort: Development of an innovative lounge chair

Prof Dr. Peter Vink
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
TNO / Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

16:50 EyeSeat – Understanding Seating Behaviour

• Applying feedback methods
• Successfully using sensors in the chair
• Communication between chair and user

Malte Lenkeit
Ergonomics Expert
Dauphin HumanDesign® Group GmbH & Co. KG, Germany

17:30 Closing Remarks Of The Chairman

17:40 End Of The Special Focus Day

[ Register Now] · [ Next: Conference Day Two: Tuesday, 10th February 2009 ]