Using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis to design a comfortable automotive driver seat.
Given enough time and use, all designs will fail. There are no fail-free designs. This is especially true when it comes to automotive seating comfort where the characteristics and preferences of individual customers are many and varied. To address this problem, individuals charged with automotive seating comfort development have, traditionally, relied on iterative and, as a result, expensive build-test cycles. Cost pressures being placed on today's vehicle manufacturers have necessitated the search for more efficient alternatives. This contribution aims to fill this need by proposing the application of an analytical technique common to engineering circles (but new to seating comfort development), namely Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA). An example is offered to describe how development teams can use this systematic and disciplined approach to highlight potential seating comfort failure modes, reduce their risk, and bring capable designs to life.
Applying the Analysis of Potential Failure Modes and Their Effects in Evaluating Clinical Risks in Operating Rooms
Operating rooms are among the special hospital wards which constitute important stages in the treatment of patients with the use of special equipment and health standards. With the purpose of ensuring the safety of patients and the staff in the operating rooms and due to the necessity of clinical risk assessment, the current research focuses on the evaluation of clinical risks occurring in the operating rooms of an educational hospital. The current study is an applied research and the required data has been collected qualitatively through focus group discussions in Golestan hospital, Ahvaz, in 2015. The tools for data collection were the standard worksheet of potential failure modes. The priority matrix was used to analyze the potential failure modes and prioritize each failure mode. By performing needs assessment via Delphi method and reviewing the 50 processes in operating rooms, 10 processes were identified as being high-risk processes. After reviewing the processes in the focus group discussions, 121 potential failure modes were discovered out of which 7 potential failure modes were in the red zone after using the standard priority matrix and thus required immediate action. In order to improve the safety of patients during surgery, it is necessary to pay serious attention to the pre-operation procedures. In addition, by the use of team activities in the field of risk management, the safety culture can be institutionalized in special wards of hospitals.
A light weight car seat shaped by human body contour
The aim of this study is to develop a light-weight, comfortable seat. The idea is to shape a seat with a minimum of material by using the contour of the seated human. Twenty-five participants were asked to sit in a vacuum mattress placed on a wooden seat frame with similar angles as the car seat construction angles. They were instructed to sit in a comfortable position and perform driving movements. The mattress was then fixed, the contour scanned and digitised. All scans were superimposed giving input for a seat shell design made out of glass fibre laminate. The comfort experience of the shell was tested by 25 participants and compared with a standard BMW seat. The study shows that it is possible to create a rather comfortable seat using the human surface anatomy. However, more research on defining the specific form for the ideal shell is needed.