Interactive Workshop Day - Thursday, 12th February 2009
Please click on the links below to learn more:
- Workshop A: The lightweight challenge: Weight reduction in seat comfort components
- Workshop B: What is smart design? Realizing the intelligent seat
- Workshop C: How to solve the problem of diversified requirements on rear seats?
- Workshop D: Cross industry learning – Using synergies!
09:00 - 12:00 Workshop A: The lightweight challenge:
Weight reduction in seat comfort components
The workshop will identify weight reduction trends of comfort systems. The lumbar support systems that we
find in vehicle seats today have been designed to meet comfort and durability requirements. But since weight
reduction gains importance for all automotive components, also comfort components are requested to contribute
to this trend. The workshop will deal with the optimization of components, new system arrangements and
material substitution and will thereby demonstrate how to decrease the weight of complex comfort systems.
Furthermore we will discuss weight reduction to be achieved by material substitution for seating upholstery.
Momentarily PU-foam is the most common material for vehicle seat upholstery. The challenge for the future is
to decrease the weight of this material. One approach is to simply find alternatives for PU-foam. The approach
using PET fibre material will be discussed, analysing all advantages and disadvantages.
- Weight reduction by system arrangement and material substitution
- Decreasing weight of complex comfort systems
- PU-foam vs. PET fibre material
Jan Petzel
Manager Ergonomics & Advanced Development
Leggett & Platt Automotive Group Europe, Germany
09:00 - 12:00 Workshop B: What is smart design? Realizing the intelligent seat
In this workshop we will learn how to develop a smart seat for office worker. Following questions will be
discussed: What is smart design? What development stages are there? What process is followed? What are
the current results? It is important to identify various problems in different fields of transportation (automotive,
rail, public transport etc.) and to figure out which might be solved by smart seats or smart products in seats.
In this workshop we will discuss if the identified problems might be solved by applying new features for smart
seats in non-office surroundings.
- Exploring what does make a smart seat design?
- Identifying specific problems in different fields of transportation
- Discussing solutions for smart seats in non-office surroundings
Robin Bronkhorst
Team Manager
TNO, The Netherlands |
Lottie Kuijt-Evers
Researcher
TNO, The Netherlands
|
13:00 - 16:00 Workshop C: How to solve the problem of diversified requirements on rear seats?
The aim of the workshop is to explore in greater depth the issues of rear seat design as covered in the earlier
conference presentation in a fun and interactive manner. One of the key issues in rear seats is developing
common solutions that can be used across several vehicle nameplates and therefore 'sweating the assets'.
To illustrate this the workshop group will initially be split into two vehicle teams. Each team will be asked to
consider what the market needs are for their vehicle and then specifically what this means for rear seats. The
two teams will then be brought together to look at the synergies and unique requirements of their respective
vehicle nameplates and either propose a solution to meet both needs or discuss the challenges that are faced
in doing so. As a group we will then discuss and reflect the key learning points of the exercise:
- Market trends and requirements (global markets, feature and functionality, sustainability)
- Packaging challenges (occupant considerations, vehicle body proportions, adjacent vehicle systems, cargo carrying capability)
- Meeting the design challenge (potential approaches to meeting the design challenge & satisfying the market requirements)
Feisal O'Neill
Senior Manager – Seating Systems – Product Development
Jaguar & Landrover, UK
|
Mike Wiggin
Technical Specialist for Seating Systems
Jaguar & Landrover, UK
|
13:00 - 16:00 Workshop D: Cross industry learning – Using synergies!
In this workshop we will discuss the different requirements for seat systems of various kinds of vehicles.
Passenger cars, trucks, tractors, aircraft – they all pose different challenges for engineers as well as designers.
How to meet these challenges and how to transfer this knowledge to other means of transportation? That is
what we want to explore in this workshop to better use synergies in R&D while developing the ideal seat
systems.
- Understanding different design, technical and ergonomic requirements of various vehicles
- Intelligent knowledge transfer
- Successfully elaborating synergies
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