Development of Combined Guide and Soft Closing for Sliding Door Systems

Abstract: This master thesis includes a product development process focused on incorporating a soft closing system for sliding doors in an existing cabinet at IKEA. A soft closing system prevents the door from slamming into the furniture when closing it. The unit today has what is called guides, holding the cabinet doors in place. The aim is to create a device that possesses all of the crucial qualities of a guide as well as a soft closing to be able to replace the former. The reason for this is to be able to apply a soft closing to the cabinet or similar units to give them the added feeling of luxury that a soft closing provides. The thesis was executed at IKEA Components, a subsidiary company within the IKEA corporate group. The cabinet today is very simple and this is why a more luxurious feeling was sought after. IKEA Components had part of a solution when the project began that was investigated during this project along with the search for additional ideas. To get a greater understanding of soft closing systems, guides and different kinds of cabinets and storage units, an extensive background study was conducted. This showed that the combination of a soft closing and a guide was not a commonly occurring device at the investigated companies. A lot of concepts were generated and evaluated and after an extensive iterative process the thesis resulted in two concepts. Both of the ideas consist of encasing the soft closing in a shell that then enables a vertical movement. This was needed to fulfil all of the requirements. The main difference between these concepts is the execution of this movement. The first idea has a kind of snap fitting idea that hold the soft closing in place in the different positions. It is moved by pushing the snap fitting inwards and pushing up or down. The second idea has a more complicated internal design, but is very easy for the user to operate. It is moved by using a “key” and turning it counter clockwise 180 degrees to move it up and by pushing it in and turning it the opposite way, it is moved down. This thesis resulted in two possible solutions for combining a soft closing system with a guide.