Utveckling av knivkoncept

This report is a thesis in the context of the engineering education Ergonomic Design and Production at Luleå University of Technology that includes 30 hp. The work began in 2007 in collaboration with the knife manufacturer Mora of Sweden. The company wanted to enter the market for kitchen knives and formulated a mission statement: to develop a series of kitchen knives, identify what kind of knifes that should be included in such series and to develop packaging and display material for the series. The work would be based on a market and user study and the design would be based on Mora of Sweden’s design manual.The process that was used for the work began with an exploratory phase including interviews, observations and questionnaires with both professional users and ordinary consumers. Based on the survey the work identified user needs and established a product specification based on user needs, the requirements of the manufacturer and the theory of antropometry and hand ergonomics. The next phase was a concept generating phase with brainstorming and sketching. After sorting out four concepts followed a concept selection phase that began with visualization of the four concepts both through renderings and prototypes to be tested by users. After this phase the work took a break and was addressed again in 2015 with the last phase of the concept selection process that was based on the user’s opinion and a decision matrix.The concept chosen was a knife handle made of plastic with a dark gray rubber surface and lime green accents. The handle is easy to grip and is designed so that the user can easily switch position of the hand to keep the knife balanced during various operations. The design harmonize with Mora of Sweden design manual by the simple curved line that divides the handle into two surfaces and the concave and convex surfaces that come together in a smooth transition.Based on the information collected from users and benchmarking the work identified five kinds of knives that should be included in the series: large chef's knife, bread knife, fillet knife, paring knife and small chef’s knife. A proposal for a packaging material was developed from the knife concept and Mora of Sweden design manual. The package can both be adapted for a smaller series of knives and for individual knives and picks up the shape of Mora of Sweden logotype and shows the silhouette images of which knives are inside.Because the work was paused for a long time the result was no longer of relevant to Mora of Sweden but the work nonetheless presented proposals on how the concept could be further developed.Validerat; 20150613 (global_studentproject_submitter