Utsidan räknas
?En materialstudie
Judged by appearance. This is the conclusion of research made on shopper behavior that revealed that consumers tend to go by their instinct when evaluating vacuum cleaners in a purchasing situation. Many buy the first vacuum cleaner they interact with and few buy pre-planned brands. Almost none even turn the machine on before taking a purchase decision.Electrolux Floor Care Europe has their factory for vacuum cleaners in Hungary. Increased competition from China makes it harder to "only" produce vacuum cleaners with good performance. The demands on a vacuum cleaner today also include excellent industrial design combined with a low price, which set the material in focus.The aim of this thesis work was through analysis of market demands; pick different problems or quality increasing measures and work on the basis of these. Six topics were chosen for further investigation. The project was carried out at Electrolux Floor Care, Stockholm, between April and October in 2007.The first task was to compile and understand what drives consumers in their attempt to evaluate vacuum cleaners in a purchasing situation, and how they evaluate quality. Interpretation of the results and the connection betweenfirst touch and building the brand is presented.The second task was to evaluate the possibility to replace paint for plastic components by adding a metallic flakes directly to the material, as a cost saving strategy. A trial was done in Hungary at a local injection moulder.The third was to investigate if a switch of paint system from solvent-based to water-based paints is possible without lowering the demands. Several paints and paint suppliers were evaluated.The fourth task was to look at possible solutions to increase abrasion resistance on clear polycarbonate dust containers. Several hard coats and substituting materials were evaluated. Even though almost all of them gave a better result than the reference material, none of them was good enough to go further with.As a fifth task a material library was built for internal use in the product development process. The library is displayed at Electrolux Floor Care on third floor.The last and the sixth task were to look into alternatives to stiffening ribs. Ribs are used to stiffen larger plastic parts, and leave unwanted marks on the surface when colouring with flakes or when designing transparent goods. Several solutions are presented, but none of them have been evaluated.This report is a result of a Master thesis work made at Electrolux Floor Care & Small Appliances in Stockholm, Sweden, in cooperation with the division of Machine Design by the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH in Stockholm, Sweden.