Product Development : Steering solutions for Easy Boating

Abstract: This bachelor's thesis consists of a product development project performed for Volvo Penta's transmissions department. In line with Volvo Penta's vision of Easy Boating, the problem description entailed, to make boating easier by developing concepts for the steering of boats. The goal was to develop three concepts which suited the requirements provided by the project owner. The bachelor's thesis was preceded by a study, in the form of a concept generation process. The project was initiated with a concept generation process, in parallel with a requirement analysis. This concept generation was performed with the assistance of tools from the Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch (TRIZ) methodology. Utilised parts from TRIZ are tools for identifying free resources, finding and resolving undesirable contradictions and predicting the next step of development of a system. In accordance with the methods of Set-Based Engineering, the generated concepts were not chosen for their merit, but instead eliminated based on requirements and developed knowledge. To accomplish this, the requirements were collected from the identified stakeholders of the project and ranked based on their respective weight. The requirements were used in the elimination of the concepts which was performed in three stages: pruning of concepts, concept screening and ultimately, concept scoring. These three stages were based on the literature and chosen because of their ability to incorporate the requirements in the elimination. As a result of the elimination process six concepts of two different product categories, addons to existing solutions and complete new systems, were presented to Volvo Penta in combination with a product development plan. The result of six concepts was obtained since none of the concepts categories could be eliminated by the requirements collected in the process and therefore it was decided to present tree from each category.