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Revision as of 23:54, 7 March 2007

Executive Summary

Research and Observations

We have been tasked to identify a new opportunity in the domain of the ceiling-mounted bicycle lift and develop new product design recommendations to improve and expand your product line. As we stated in our previous report, we feel that the product has been designed very well and that it fulfills its intent to use the commonly unused space directly below a ceiling for storage. However, this product is severely limited to only being able to store one bicycle. We feel that you will be able to improve and expand your product line by producing new products that can store many other items in the space directly below a ceiling. The Team 1 Research Documentation page shows pictures of storage places that we have taken during our research and the results from a survey we have taken to determine what items may be stored by a ceiling mounted device. This research gave us a chance to go beyond our own personal experience of storage problems and see what sort of items that different people could feasibly and usefully store near a ceiling. We found that...

Concept Generation

We held a brainstorming session as a group to develop as many storage solutions as possible. Our ideas were focused on using the space below a ceiling for storage. Our list of ideas can be seen on the Team 1 Brainstorming Documentation page. We voted on the ideas to narrow them down and develop a few strong concepts.

Concept 1: Heavy Duty Industrial Lift

The Heavy Duty Industrial Lift takes the idea of the ceiling-mounted bike lift to another level. It would be built with strong and durable materials that could withstand very high loads. It is intended to be used in an industrial setting to store large heavy objects or multiple heavy objects inside a place such as a warehouse, where high ceilings are common. The Heavy Duty Industrial Lift would utilize the typically unused space directly below a high ceiling. Objects may be stacked or placed on top of the wire grid, or they could be hung from the grid or additional eyelets. The pulley system as shown in the sketch would provide a 10 to 1 mechanical advantage. A heavy duty cable runs through each pulley and the grid is raised and lowered by means of a hand winch, which provides an additional mechanical advantage.

Concept 2: Garage and Basement Use Storage Lift

The garage and basement use storage lift expands upon the ceiling mounted bike lift in many ways. The bike lift have a very small market and does not appeal to many people. The garage and basement use storage lift expands the market by being able to lift almost anything that one would store in there basement or garage. It allows for this by having a variety of changeble lifting mechanisms. They include the original hooks, a bin, and a clothing hook rack as can be seen in the picture below as well as many more. Also, the pulleys at the ceiling will be able to slide back and forth so that the user can adjust the distance between them as well as there placement on the ceiling. Finally, a better quality rope will be used so that the lift can lift more weight.

Concept 3:

Concept Analysis

Pugh Chart

Description		Ceiling-mounted bicycle lift	Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3
Sketch		Ceiling-mounted bicycle lift Sketch
Criteria	Weight	Datum	Design 1	Design 2	Design 3
Cost	3	0	- -	0	-
Durability	2	0	+	0	0
Safety	3	0	-	0	0
Aesthetics	1	0	0	0	++
Usefulness	3	0	+	++	++
Strength	1	0	++	+	+
+		0	7	7	9
0		12	1	9	7
-		0	9	0	3
Net Score		0	-2	7	6

Value Opportunity Analysis