Product development of a fire hose basket that promotes ergonomics for firefighters

Abstract: This report comprises a product development of an ergonomically designed hose basket that can be used by the firefighters when storing or carrying a fire hose. A study on ergonomics in the profession as a firefighter conducted by the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) showed that fire hose deployment was very physically exhausting. This study also revealed that some load may become too heavy and difficult to carry due to the design of the equipment. Injury to the user during lifting is common within the profession. Therefore there is a need for equipment that is more ergonomically designed.  The project follows a product development phase that includes market research and feasibility study which was accomplished by a literature study and through study visits and interviews at fire stations.  A common type of hose basket was used as the starting point for the project. This hose basket is in this report referred as "Skövde basket" and was considered heavy and un-ergonomic to carry, especially for shorter people. From the gathered information a ‘house of quality’ and a two-step idea generation was created. Several concepts that were made opposed the Skövde basket in an evaluation matrix. A material selection using a program, CES Selector 3.2 was made on the winning concept that became a hose basket which is carried under the arm.   The hose basket was then constructed in the program Creo Parametric 4.0 and detail drawings were created. A prototype was then made and tested by firefighters of both sexes and of different heights. The results pointed out improvements and deteriorations from the Skövde basket. The deterioration was that the basket became more difficult to pack, which was due to the reduced number of bars. Improvements were noticed on lift height; significant increase on lift height facilitated easy carrying by shorter individuals.