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Redesign of an overhead system : Concept development of a Vertical Support System at Liko Hill-Rom

This project is a master theses in Industrial Design Engineering written during the autumn of 2017 at Luleå University of Technology and Liko-Hill-Rom in Alvik, Luleå. Liko Hill-Rom is a world-leading company that manufactures and develops patient lifts, slings, mobile lifts, etc. to customers around the world. Liko’s Ovearhead lift system is a system used for lifting and moving disabled people, for example at homes for the elderly, schools and habilitation, hospitals or at home.This project is a development process that concerns the vertical support in Liko Hill-Rom’s Overhead System. The vertical supports are the part that attaches the entire overhead system to the ceiling and our task has been to create a new or developed concept on today’s vertical support. Since these vertical supports are attached to a rail, we needed to create a good interface between these two parts. In order to achieve this, we have collaborated with another group whose task has been to develop the rails in this Overhead. Today, Liko Hill-Rom’s Overhead Lift system is a major part of Liko Hill-Rom’s product portfolio, which is in need of improvements, especially the vertical supports, in order to meet customer and business needs.The goal of our project has been to deliver a smarter and more cost-effective solution of the vertical supports and at the same time maintaining the same reliability as today’s system. Liko Hill-Rom’s current assortment consists of many different variants of vertical supports. By reducing the number of these, can contribute to a more profitable concept “one that fits all”, which will make the design and installation more rapid.The project process was based on a Stage-gate process which is influenced from Liko Hill-Rom’s internal guidelines for a product development process. The stakeholders is based on users and experts in the field and these have been involved in the project process to ensure a good design for all. The project has also been built on a number of scientific theories such as ergonomics, semiotics, affordance and usability, to ensure that the result of the project was based with scientific support.Throughout the process different design methods have been performed, in order to create a concept that fulfills the needs and requirements from our stakeholders. We have for instances created full-scale prototypes in order to develop, evaluate and improve our concept throughout this project. In order to ensure that this concept could withstand the load requirements that Liko Hill-Rom´s product requires, we also perform both mathematical and finite element calculations.The result is a new concept that will replace all 9 adjustable vertical support included in the Liko Hill-Rom system today. The design of the new concept will be considerably more flexible because the majority of the components will be universal. This means that our created concept will be more cost-effective compared to today’s vertical support.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:ltu-64329
Date January 2017
CreatorsNyberg, Annika, Ödling, Sofia
PublisherLuleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik och samhälle
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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