Designing rear seats for a ‘Welfare Vehicle’ enabling vehicle access for people using wheel chair
A Japanese Tier 1 was looking to develop a rear seat in a “Welfare vehicle “ for a Japanese OEM. The key requirement was a Seat layout such that it can provide space, as well as ease of access to vehicle for people using wheel chair. The rear seats should have the capability to effectively fold and tumble and make way for wheelchair docking as required. This requirement though had a limited market size, was executed by the client as a part of their social responsibility initiatives.
The engineering design team at KPIT took these requirements to work on every aspect of product design life cycle such as concept seat design, layout & packaging studies, safety requirements, material selection, DFMEA and more. Detailed computer aided analysis on LS Dyna and Hypermesh was performed to ensure design meets the product and regulatory requirements. Final design drawings were released for design verification tooling and physical seat build.
The OEM used these drawings to build parts and conduct physical testing. After Analysis of the physical test results, the design was improved and released for production.
The welfare vehicle with the rear seat( Design partner – KPIT) was debuted in AUTO Expo in Japan.
- Currently around 10% of the total world’s population, or roughly 650 million people, live with a disability
- About 23% of these individuals need some sort of specialized assistance or equipment to travel outside the home
- According to 2015 Open Doors Organization study, adults with disabilities spend $17.3 billion annually on their travel
- Success Benefits for Client
- Cost Optimization
- On Time Delivery: The project had to be completed in 6 months. KPIT successfully executed the project comprising of 321 tasks (drawings/models) with 98.1% On Time Delivery.
- Extreme Quality Control: 100% reviewed artifacts, 100% defect free delivery
