Redesign of an industrial air treatment product.

Abstract: Ozonetech is a Swedish company that develops and markets systems and solutions based on their own ozone generating technology. This technology is used to purify, disinfect and deodorize air and water, providing benefits for the food processing industry, real estate, commercial kitchens, as well as retail. Through this project, one of their solutions for the commercial kitchen industry, the RENA Kitchen, was put in the spotlight and considered for a redesign process. The objective was to improve visually and from the point of view of installation and user experience some aspects that were defined by its original design. In order to do this, two different redesign paths or approaches were established, leading to two redesign solutions. The first approach involved the study of off-the-shelf cabinet solutions available in the market into which the RENA Kitchen could be incorporated. The second approach was a suitable product redesign, following 3 series of divergent and convergent stages in which new product concepts were explored, together with aesthetic designs. The following chapters gather information of the entire redesign project, including the background research of mainly the product and company; a study of new possible product concepts and improvements to the original one; a study of available design solutions on the market that resulted in the off-the-shelf solution; and finally, a suitable product redesign development in line with the needs and desires of the company and other relevant people, such as users and installers, which lead to the redesigned solution. During all the stages, there was a continuous flow of meetings with the company, short talks with users and installers, on-site observations, and product interaction. Both of the outcomes are useful solutions for the company, depending on their short or long-term plans, as the solutions proposed have attempted to be as in line as possible from the aesthetic point of view with what the company wanted and what was more suited to the environment and its interactions. Although an in-depth evaluation presented at the end makes it apparent that the redesigned solution offers better outcomes and achieves more effectively the design goal set at the beginning. Further work needs to be done in order to establish the new design on the market, but it constitutes a starting point for the company. Both the results and the process followed can initiate a chainreaction favoring changes to other current products of the company