Help Needed With Course Work

[v3pew]

Basically currently doing a Product Design atm and have been given a project to complete based upon a wine rack to be used within Kingston Hotels PLC.
I'm onto the final design now and i've done this one,



Due to the budget for producing the product, its being designed with powder coated aluminium.

Specification is,

1)It must hold the following complimentary items

• 2 Standard bottles of wine
• 4 Standard wine glasses
• Fresh fruit

2)It must provide easy assess for re-stocking and removal of stored items.

3)It must be stable and secure

4)Stored items must not fall for the product

5)It must be easy to clean and maintain

6)It must not allow dust to gather in the stored wine glasses

7)The materials used must be durable against wear and tear

8)It must have a planned obsolescence of 3 years

9)10,000 units are required

10)Budget of £10 per unit has been allocated

Basically looking for points to back up the specification with my design,

Thanks guys

[chunkymonkey71]

remember that not all wine bottles are the same dimensions. Not really sure what a "standard" wine bottle is, but might be worth factoring this into your design brief. Always looks good when you have slightly over engineered/compensated for potential problems.

[AJS-]

Neither a designer nor a hotelier, but my layman's impression is that I don't like that drawer at the front. It looks slightly wrong, and having fresh fruit in there, those corners would not be easy to clean. Could the drawer be rounded off at the front?

[DrTre]

The bit where the bottles sit looks like a box...could it not just be the punched "tongue" through the aluminium that has already been done for the hole that the bottle sits in?

Not sure if this is what you're asking for but it'd be cheaper i'd have thought?

ETA Apologies if I'm being picky/annoying, it's just a suggestion.

Edited by DrTre on Wednesday 15th April 12:08

[v3pew]

DrTre said:

The bit where the bottles sit looks like a box...could it not just be the punched "tongue" through the aluminium that has already been done for the hole that the bottle sits in?

Not sure if this is what you're asking for but it'd be cheaper i'd have thought?

ETA Apologies if I'm being picky/annoying, it's just a suggestion.

Edited by DrTre on Wednesday 15th April 12:08

Don't worry about it, i'll have a look into it.

Anything else ?
Needing comments to back up the spec folks.

[BigBen]

chunkymonkey71 said:

remember that not all wine bottles are the same dimensions. Not really sure what a "standard" wine bottle is, but might be worth factoring this into your design brief. Always looks good when you have slightly over engineered/compensated for potential problems.

Our beer fridge has a couple of slide out wine racks which are not good at holding all bottle shapes. Even the one on the right in the OP's picture is an odd shape and would struggle. Having said that the vast majority of wine bottles are of a standardish size

Ben

[evenflow]

The wine glasses look like they may wobble about a bit on those thin "stalks". If someone knocked it, I imagine a glass could crack.

[AJS-]

One question would be, where is the planned obselessence? Since they have asked for it I would have an explanation ready.

[DrTre]

Fits the criteria very well I reckon. The only stumbling block being the planned obsolescence....how do you do that?

only other comment I'd make is that if you "punched/pressed" tongues in the metal for the glasses to sit on instead of having the spikes then you'd be able to stack them up and be less fabrication(don't know if that's the right word), again sorry for "picking"...it's the last thing you want to read.

Edited by DrTre on Wednesday 15th April 12:18

[Piersman2]

The method you seem to have used to hold the glasses looks like it will leave the glasses all rolling around against each other, I don't think they will sit upright on spikes like that. Maybe a flat plate that the glasses can sit on upside down.

The box section under the bottles could be removed and the just cut out elongated holes that the bottles could rest in, this way it wouldn't matter too much if someone used a bottle slightly bigger bottle than you've factored for.

And again, as someone mentioned above, that tray for the grapes would be horrible after a few days, exntend the bottom on the bottle section into a smooth curved 'dish' which the grapes can rest on , with no sharp corners or edges.

[v3pew]

With regards to the stalks for the glasses, at the top there has still to be rubber grips added which would grip the glasses therefore not make them rock around.
Somewhere in the design brief (cant find it), says that the rack will be fixed down to the table in the room anyway therefore wont be getting moved about which again would prevent the glasses from 'clunking' against each other.
Regarding the tray, the hotel is a pretty upper class hotel therefore I'd imagine that the grapes would be replaced daily but i'll certainly have a re-think about the tray.

Keep them coming.

[AJS-]

How about a hollow cone for the glasses to rest on? This would mean any size glass would be held in one place and the trays could be stacked.

[Mr POD]

v3pew said:

Due to the budget for producing the product, its being designed with powder coated aluminium.


2)It must provide easy assess for re-stocking and removal of stored items.

3)It must be stable and secure



7)The materials used must be durable against wear and tear

8)It must have a planned obsolescence of 3 years

9)10,000 units are required

10)Budget of £10 per unit has been allocated

Why Powdercost Aluminium ?
Why not use chrome or brushed stainless.
Why not Acyilic Sheet?
Why Planned Obsolesence ?
Cost Vs Volume is always interesting, but I take it you have a FIXED demand. Tooling for your concept would cost £50K as a guestimate.

[chunkymonkey71]

being Uber picky now, but check that storing the wine at an angle doesnt allow for the settling or formation of sediment. Generally wines are stored horizontally or vertically in their bottles. It'll probably be ok, but when you write up your project report it might be worth mentioning?

Again, being Uber picky but make sure you use a reasonably hard grade of rubber for the glass stoppers. In a hot restaurant or beside a window you might find that light refracts through the glass and heats the rubber, thus sticking the glass to the holder. How about replacing it with foam or perhaps a velvet top?

Another way to hygenically store the glasses is to have legs that hold the glass by the stem, rather than touching the inside? Think of a fork that is bent at the top.

Brushed steel is the way forward as it will be easy to clean and still shine! Aluminium will feel too light, bearing in mind it will be holding around 2 litres of liquid, as well as the glasses. It will need to feel solid, and this will affect the perceived quality of the product too. Otherwise, your design looks great! Good luck with it!

Edited by chunkymonkey71 on Wednesday 15th April 12:35

[Strangely Brown]

The only thing that I cannot see in your design is the built in obsolescence. How does it become so?

[v3pew]

Mr POD said:

v3pew said:

Due to the budget for producing the product, its being designed with powder coated aluminium.


2)It must provide easy assess for re-stocking and removal of stored items.

3)It must be stable and secure



7)The materials used must be durable against wear and tear

8)It must have a planned obsolescence of 3 years

9)10,000 units are required

10)Budget of £10 per unit has been allocated

Why Powdercost Aluminium ?
Why not use chrome or brushed stainless.
Why not Acyilic Sheet?
Why Planned Obsolesence ?
Cost Vs Volume is always interesting, but I take it you have a FIXED demand. Tooling for your concept would cost £50K as a guestimate.

Powdercoated aluminium is cheaper to purchase that chrome or brushed stainless steel and with a budget of £10 each, this HAS to be complied to.
IMO Acylic sheet wouldnt be a very attractive material to use in an upper class hotel.
Havent a clue about planned obsolescense, just have to follow the rules im affraid lol, tbh i dont even really know what it means.

[Bing o]

If you go for the principle that with wines that have corks, you want to keep the corks wet to stop air getting in, I think the angle is too upright.

[JamesM]

Go faster stripes and halfords vinyls all over it. Maybe some alloys too.

[Strangely Brown]

v3pew said:

Havent a clue about planned obsolescense, just have to follow the rules im affraid lol, tbh i dont even really know what it means.

It means that the product must be obsolete after three years. It's a method of forcing people to buy new ones although I don't see how it matters here, or why the customer would specify it.

[AJS-]

JamesM said:

Go faster stripes and halfords vinyls all over it. Maybe some alloys too.

And a big CB antenna!