Product development for a spacesaving daybed

Abstract: This thesis documents a product development project as a Bachelor of Science in Innovation Technology and Design engineering degree. The thesis was written during spring 2020 at Karlstad University. The project was conducted on behalf of IKEA of Sweden with the goal of developing a new daybed. Daybeds are versatile furniture that can convert a living room into a bedroom in just a few seconds. The current daybeds at IKEA cannot be separated into two single beds and still maintain the same height level to enable dual sleeping. This function is something that many customers have requested and desired. The goal of this project was to develop a daybed that can be separated into two single beds and maintain the current functions of a daybed. The project has been conducted with the use of a project model that includes the following phases: planning, pre-study, requirement specification, concept generation, concept selection as well as layout construction. The final phase of the project included the handing in of this thesis, an exhibition and a presentation. A pre-study was conducted to establish the past research, functions, shapes, sizes, new possibilities etc. These were identified and transformed into demands and wishes to create a requirement specification which was used as a foundation for the concept generation. The concept generation provided various ideas for previously established sub functions. These were then combined to create complete concept solutions for the new daybed. By utilising known screening methods only a few concepts remained. These were presented to the outsourcer and a final concept was chosen for further development. The chosen concept takes inspiration from the simple space-saving methods of stacking and folding. This concept meets all the demands and most of the wishes in the requirement specification. A prototype in scale 1:10 and a CAD-model was made to better present the concept. The concept consists of two almost identical beds where one is assigned as the bottom bed and the other is the top bed. To use them as a daybed they need to be stacked on top of each other in which the top bed is placed upside down. Recommendations for further work with the concept are also presented in the thesis.