Apple peeler redesign
From DDL Wiki
(→Summary) |
(→Summary) |
||
Line 105: | Line 105: | ||
==Summary== | ==Summary== | ||
In summary, the users were not satisfied with the apple peeler products currently out in the market. Experiences gained by the user from the competitor products are positive in some areas, negative in all other. There seem to be no products which fulfill the top stakeholder product needs listed above at a satisfactory level. | In summary, the users were not satisfied with the apple peeler products currently out in the market. Experiences gained by the user from the competitor products are positive in some areas, negative in all other. There seem to be no products which fulfill the top stakeholder product needs listed above at a satisfactory level. | ||
+ | |||
The Hand Held Peeler is the simplest and easy to use, but the chances of the user injuring him/herself is not negligible. The electric peeler has a very high standard in term of performance, but the price is very expensive, so only some heavy users will gain high value for money. The standard peeler is a very good product for its price and its value for money is very high. The overall quality of this product is satisfactory, but it fails to address some stakeholder needs such as maintainability and safety. There are no household peelers which address all of the stakeholder needs. | The Hand Held Peeler is the simplest and easy to use, but the chances of the user injuring him/herself is not negligible. The electric peeler has a very high standard in term of performance, but the price is very expensive, so only some heavy users will gain high value for money. The standard peeler is a very good product for its price and its value for money is very high. The overall quality of this product is satisfactory, but it fails to address some stakeholder needs such as maintainability and safety. There are no household peelers which address all of the stakeholder needs. | ||
+ | |||
This lead us to conclude that we have a very good chance of entering the market of house-hold or commercial apple peeler. | This lead us to conclude that we have a very good chance of entering the market of house-hold or commercial apple peeler. | ||
Revision as of 22:09, 6 October 2009
Contents |
Executive Summary
We have identified the primary root need for the apple peeler is to eat an tasty apple. The user does not want to peel an apple. They peel because they want to eat an apple without experiencing the bitter taste in their mouth when they bit into an apple.
Provide a brief executive summary that describes your key findings and recommendations.
Market Research
Provide a description of your market research and observations. Include pictures to communicate key observations where possible. Summarize top stakeholder product needs in a list.
Competitor Products
The following reviews for the three competitor products were collected by
- 1. interviewing users who have used the standard peeler and/or;
- 2. researching online reviews of each competitor products.
Any contradictory statements are due to personal preferences of each user.
Standard Peeler
Pros
- Easy to clean.
- Easy to use.
- Can peel vegetable such as potatoes and other firm vegetables but not as easy as apples.
- Can be used for other purposes other than peeling, such as making curly fries and hash browns.
- Suction cup base is much better than the model with clamp.
- Metal structure more preferable over plastic device.
- Safer than conventional hand held peeler.
- Even kids are able to use it with not problems.
- Relatively robust for apples of various sizes and shapes.
- Core removing mechanism is favorable.
Cons
- Core is wasted if corer/slicer is used to slice the potatoes.
- Suction cup loses its adhesion capability if immersed in water, but recovers after time.
- Butterfly nut cannot be hand tightened, or the corer/slicer will move. Pliers are required.
- Corer/slicer is hard to realign once removed.
- Only peels fraction of the apple even with fine tuning.
- Core broke in half during the process making clean up difficult.
- Device is too small for medium to large potatoes.
- Suction cup loses its suction while the peeling process.
- Spring which hold the peeler blade is too strong which causes the peeler to peel off more than desired.
- Handle disconnects from the arm.
- Device rusts after a period of time.
- Leaves skin at top and bottom.
- Some apple wasted since the blade digs deeper than desired.
- Hard to clean the device with all the screws, springs and nuts.
- Blade exposure is dangerous.
- Do not want to eat apple in slices/spirals.
- Usage is confusing when first seen without user manual.
- Not a favorable aesthetic, the design is outdated.
- Too heavy.
- Concerned with potential rusting which may cause food contamination.
Conclusion Difficulties or ease experienced differ greatly from user to user, but in general this product is good for its price but has many room for improvement. The suction cup and metallic body was favored by many, but the robustness and maintainability seemed to be a problem.
Hand Held Peeler
Pros
- Small and simple. Storage is easy.
- Easy to clean.
- Cheap.
Cons
- Tiring and time consuming to peel.
- Chance of injury is very high.
- Irregular peeling.
Conclusion Simplest and therefore most robust but also most work required during the peeling process.
Electric Peeler
Pros
- Easy to clean.
- Very fast.
- Very robust. Can peel potatoes of different sizes and shapes with no problem.
- Does not peel excessively.
Cons
- Noisy.
- Does not peel the skin off the 'eye'.
- Relatively expensive for a single purpose device.
Conclusion Very expensive but the performance is top class.
Top Stakeholder Product Needs
- Maintainability
- Easy to clean.
- Reduced risk of rusting.
- Safety
- No blade exposure.
- Aesthetics
- Device design need to be favorable.
- Performance
- Skin need to be completely peeled.
- Variability in processing style.
- No excessive peeling.
- Ease of use
- Use and function of the device must be intuitive.
- Single or two step process is much preferred.
- Device must be stable for satisfactory performance.
- Light weight and compact.
- Value for money
- Device may have better performance but the value for money may be low.
Summary
In summary, the users were not satisfied with the apple peeler products currently out in the market. Experiences gained by the user from the competitor products are positive in some areas, negative in all other. There seem to be no products which fulfill the top stakeholder product needs listed above at a satisfactory level.
The Hand Held Peeler is the simplest and easy to use, but the chances of the user injuring him/herself is not negligible. The electric peeler has a very high standard in term of performance, but the price is very expensive, so only some heavy users will gain high value for money. The standard peeler is a very good product for its price and its value for money is very high. The overall quality of this product is satisfactory, but it fails to address some stakeholder needs such as maintainability and safety. There are no household peelers which address all of the stakeholder needs.
This lead us to conclude that we have a very good chance of entering the market of house-hold or commercial apple peeler.
Design Concepts
Design Comparison
A Pugh Chart allows us to systematically make comparisons between different products. By comparing and contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas we will be able to better evaluate the features of the designs and filter for the best concept. A standard Pugh Chart includes: Criteria, which state the top customer and stakeholder needs; Weights, the relative importance of the criteria; Datum, an existing product for referencing and benchmarking; and Net Score, a non-scientific score summarizing the findings of the chart.
For our five top design concepts all but one of them (Design 5: apple vending machine with built in peeler) fall into the domain of household products. Therefore, instead of including that concept into the same Pugh Chart as the others, which would be meaningless, we created a separate Pugh Chart incorporating Design 5, which focuses on comparing pros and cons between vending machines. The Pugh Chart are as follows:
Pugh Chart 1 - household peelers
Pugh Chart 2 - commercial vending machines
The first Pugh Chart compares Design 1-4 with a standard peeler and two competitor products in regards of Price, Safety, Easy to use, Efficiency, and Portability. Among our 4 concepts Design 2 and 3 both have a net score of 2. This indicates that these two concepts are slightly better than the standard peeler. The Motorized Peeler is more efficient due to its high peeling speed and the Peeling Gloves are easier to use and are very portable. Our 2 other designs however, have scores of 0 and -1 respectively. Although the Foldable Peeler increases the portability of the product, it also makes it less easy to use and a bit more pricey. The Children's Peeler, on the other hand, does not increase the value of the product in any of the five criteria but instead increases the price and decreases the portability of the product. The first competitor product, the Hand-held Peeler has a net score of 0 but the second competitor product, the electric peeler has a net score of 5. This is due to the fact that the electric peeler is a lot easier to use than the standard peeler while it is also safer.
In Pugh Chart 2 comparisons among different vending machines are made. Our Design 5, the apple vending machine with built in peeler is being compared with a standard vending machine and a fresh fruit vending machine. Under the criteria of Price, Easy to use, Healthiness, and Consumption, Design 5 scores 9 while the fresh fruit vending machine has a score of 4. The reason our design is slightly better is because the apple being sold is healthier and is also in a form that makes consuming it easier. Without the skin no potential harmful chemicals (for instance fertilizer) is taken by the consumer. Also, with the skin peeled it means that the apple is ready to be consumed, the user does not have to worry about washing the apple or cleaning it in any way.
Project Plan
Gantt Chart
Gantt Chart is convenient for project planning.
1) Divides a complex project into smaller tasks.
2) Organize tasks in a chronological order.
3) Estimates how long a project required.
4) Allow user to know what tasks are dependent on other tasks to be completed first.
All works have been assigned to team members.
We will follow this sechdule as much as we possibly can.
Team Member Roles
Findings and Recommendations
Appendix
Initial Ideas
- 1) Eliminate all the screws
- 2) Motorize the peeler
- 3) Lazer!!!
- 4) Tray to hold the peeler
- 5) Circular 1-step Blade
- 6) Better Appearance Design
- 7) Grow an apple that would automatically have the skin peel off by itself (after taking out from the fridge?)
- 8) Solution that would dissolve the skin (?)
- 9) Cut up the apple completely, and then filter out the skin, then reform it back to the shape of the apple
- 10) Freezing up the apple so the skin cracked
- 11) Have a mate to peel the apple for us
- 12) Container that holds the apple, you turn the handle bar, then it peel the apple
- 13) Centrifugal Force Apple Peeler
- 14) Separate the corer, blade and the slicer
- 15) Foldable peeler
- 16) Adjustable size peeler
- 17) Using scruber(?) to peel the skin instead
- 18) Glue, Clamp instead of suction cup
- 19) Part of the kitchen part
- 20) Rotate the blade instead of rotating the apple
- 21) Detachable blade? (combine the traditional peeler and the conventional one)
- 22) Scanner that detect the soft/rotten part of the apple
- 23) Automatic Super Fridge that peels every for you
- 24) Optimize peeling process such that only the skin is being taking off
- 25) New generation of apple!!! NO SKIN!!! WOHOOOOOO
- 26) Use fertilizer that is not harmful
- 27) Ultra sound to pulverize the skin
- 28) Sand paper instead of the blade!
- 29) A sphere with sand paper in so when one spin the sphere it peels the skin off
- 30) Make the skin sweet so that you would love to eat the skin
- 31) Adjustable size of the body so you can fit different size of apple/ vegetables on it
- 32) Better grib
- 33) Greener Material to plastic, no rusting, easier to manufacture
- 34) Design that doesn’t need the box, so the supplier would have more space in store
- 35) Decrease numbers of components maybe less than 5 parts!!!!
- 36) Standardize all the fasteners
- 37) Vertical peeler instead of horizontal
- 38) Use Wire/string for peeling
- 39) Single bladeSegments of blade
- 40) Bendable blade
- 41) Protection Blade Cover prevent from accidental cut
- 42) Water Power instead of man power
- 43) Foot Switch for handicap people
- 44) Sound control
- 45) Detachable Groove channel Assembly
- 46) Set the groove channel to the default position automatically (spring attached?)
- 47) Peeler returns to the default position (through some channel?)
- 48) Integrate the blade with the main body
- 49) Get rid of the spring?!
- 50) Generate energy when turning the handle bar
- 51) Switch between manual and auto
- 52) Replace the spring with rubber band
- 53) Hold the apple by magnet/ electro magnet
- 54) Add more tooth on the tri-fork
- 55) Sound interaction. Alerts user when finished peeling.
- 56) Pet compatible apple peeler
- 57) Light on apple peeler to see at night.
- 58) Sensor to detect potential injury. Alarm when hand is close to blade.
- 59) Blade turns blunt when user is in danger.
- 60) Vacuum to clean skin and juice.
- 61) Peel multiple apples at the same time.
- 62) Multiple Blades
- 63) Adjustable blade angle
- 64) Blade equipped with pressure sensor
- 65) Magnetic base
- 66) Adhesive (glue, tape, velcro) on base
- 67) User interface to alarm the user when appropriate steps are not followed
- 68) Apple loaded into device with conveyer belt
- 69) USB powered
- 70) Solar peeler
- 71) Make whole device square
- 72) Apple core removing mechanism
- 73) Series/Parallel connected peelers
- 74) Easy disassemble – easy to clean
- 75) Press/snap fit all components
- 76) Safety camera connected to parent’s computer to protect children from accidents
- 77) Automatic repositioning of groove channel by spring
- 78) Longer lever
- 79) Tri-fork on front and back for secure placement
- 80) Tri-fork all the way through the apple
- 81) Use carbon fiber to reduce weight
- 82) Change design to appeal to small children – i.e. Disney
- 83) Change handle from wood to rubber
- 84) Scans apple for optimal peeling experience
- 85) Alarms when device is not secure
- 86) Intuitive use
- 87) Attach LCD screen – TV,
- 88) Apple peeling is scored
- 89) Heating system for warm apple sensation!!! (Tri-fork)
- 90) Injecting/Coating apple with chocolate, caramel during peeling process
- 91) Blade attached to user
- 92) Sweetness sensor
- 93) Nutrition analyzing sensor
- 94) Integrated can opener
- 95) Integrated blade sharpener
- 96) Floatable peeler to recover from shipwreck
- 97) Direction of handle rotation changeable
- 98) Emits ultrasound to keep pets away from peeler
- 99) Apple vending machine with built in peeler
- 100) Built in juicer and sauce making mechanism
- 101) Automatic washing of apple
References
<references/>