Wheelchair Design Sustainability - Essay Example

Sustainability TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………...4 Specifications…………………………………………….4 of the Final Design…………………………5 Design Evaluation……………………………………….6 Recommendations for Redesign………………………..6 Sustainability……………………………………………7 References……………………………………………….8 Summary Millions of the handicapped people all over the world use the wheelchair in order to move from place to place and in the recent past many modifications have been made in the design of wheelchair to accommodate different types of movement such as movement into a car, movement on slopes etc. Today, wheelchairs are equipped with motors and the users no longer have to pull the chair manually to move from one place to other but still using wheelchair may not provide a complete solution to people who wish to move on stairs or the people who want to stand to handle things kept at a height. In the paper a new design of wheelchair has been proposed to provide solution to the problem. Introduction Many handicapped people live alone and it becomes difficult for them to get help for every specific movement at their home. They need a system to help them to reach high things on shelves and they want a system which enables easy movement on stairs. In the paper, a new design of wheelchair has been suggested which will help people moving on wheelchair in the following manner - To move up and down easily without the help of others. To handle objects kept at height. The new design will ease the process of movement on stairs and irregular floor. The new design will aid in independent movement and it will be effective in every day work without anybody’s help. The paper tries to understand the specification of current model and recommends modifications and changes in suggested model to enhance sustainability to provide improved movement to handicapped in home and outside without taking help of anybody else. The design uses battery operated system for movement and suggests further development of system based on renewable sources of energy such as solar energy. Sustainability or sustainable development is significant as it has integrated human development (Bell & Morse, 2003). The decisive role of companies to get sustainability has been discussed on strategic level (Hart, 1995, 1997; Roome, 1998) and instrumental level (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2000; Bennett and James, 1999). Sustainability requires balanced operational conception, integrated operation conception and integrated strategic conception. In the paper the sustainability of the design of a wheelchair used by handicapped people has been discussed. Specifications Some of the key factors contributing to product innovation are industrialization, open market and a need for high quality products from customer. Design parameters in the current system include the wheels, the sensors to initiate movement of wheels based on weight change and the battery operated motor. The desired specifications of new design of wheelchair are - Wheels moving in all directions - The new wheelchair will come with four wheels which have more flexibility to rotate and move. Attachments for increasing the height of chair - The stair climbing wheelchair should be able to balance on two wheels in order to raise the chair’s height and enable the user to reach things at a height. Computerized balancing system - The chair is supplied with computerized balancing systems which help the chair to stabilize, when it goes up or down the stairs. Light weight body - The body of wheel chair has been changed from heavy metal structure to light weight alloys, which is easy to move and use. Description of the Final Design The new design helps disabled people to move easily even over the rough terrain, slopes and enables them to climb curbs. The most important advantage of the new design is the ability of going up and down stairs without anybodies help. The two sets of the wheel can rotate up and over each others in order to make the chair move smoothly up and down the stairs. The stairs climbing wheel chair has easy to use system which includes the movement of wheels as per the desired work. The user can move the wheels one on other in a way to increase the height of wheels and it works amazingly. Light-weight Alloy Body - The body of wheelchair is made up of alloy metal instead of heavy metals (such as iron) and it makes it easy for the user to move the wheelchair in various directions. Wheels - The new cutting edge technology enables the wheel chair to climb heights and raise the position of person sitting on it. Climbing stair wheelchair depends on four wheels, each two sets move together, if the user wants to go up stairs or down stairs. The two sets can rotate over each other taking the same movement of the human legs. As shown in (Figure 3) the first wheel set go down first then the rear set wheel move over the front wheel set, while, the computerize system keep the balance of the chair. Sensors working on weight change - The user of the chair moves his / her weight over the rear wheels in order to cause the wheel to rotate over the front wheel and then down to the following step. By shifting the weight backward and forward, the sensors installed on the chair adjusts the position of the user over the chair to keep him at the center of the gravity. Battery operated system - The wheelchair runs on batteries to provide movement. Design Evaluation In many wheelchair designs, the person requires help from others to move from the wheel chair to another vehicle or across the stairs. It is difficult for people to reach out to things kept at a height on shelves. Both the requirements have been fulfilled by the new design but still the design requires improvement to enable sustainability Issues in Current Design One of the problems in the above design is the manual use of the chair which works on the user weight moving and this should be replaced by panel buttons that will have automatic controls for the movement of the chair without more efforts from the user. The design uses batteries for operation but it should be based on cheap and easy to access source of energy. The wheelchair should have more features to ease different types of movement. Recommendations for Redesign The new design should enable effective use of wheelchair where the user can operate the control buttons to move, instead of being dependant on weight for changing the movement of the wheels. The person should be able to move easily on stairs without being scared of a fall, hence, improved balancing is required. The movement of wheelchair should be more flexible to enable the user to use it in various situations. The wheelchair can be made more environmental friendly by developing the system, in which, it is operated through solar energies. The wheelchair should have a complete system controlled through robots to provide easy use. Sustainability The relations between three performance dimensions of sustainability are - environment, social and economic performance and integrating the three helps the firms in the following ways (Figge, 2001) - Sustainability enables the companies to prepare to handle financial crisis. The firms reinforce environmental and social management, which also helps them to design strategies towards competitors. The integration of social and business aspects ensures three-dimensional operational sustainability. Firms try to get simultaneous improvement in environmental performance, social performance and economic performance (Figge et al., 2001b). Sustainability in Product Design Sustainable design is not just innovation it should be able to shape even the unknown. The design should provide learning experience to organization. The company designing the product has to focus on changing the product designs and developing the product accordingly. Lifecycle of product design process to build sustainability intelligence - Assess - A sustainable design should be able to analyze the socio- environmental impact. The current design of wheel in the wheelchair will help people to move efficiently and hence, it has a positive social and environmental impact. Bridge - The product can connect parties and bring right people together. The wheelchair will be used by handicapped people but it will be produced and marketed by business units. The wheelchair will bring business organizations and non-profit social organization to meet and work together to provide the equipments to the needy. Create - Sustainability helps to explore and learn and to implemented changes in the product design. The design provides ample scope for further changes in the raw material used in designing the body, shape and implementations. The basic guide of sustainable designs are - Initially the design of product falls in one or two categories but later it can be changed - re-changed to address other areas. Even this product provides a scope for changes to handle varying needs of customers. In the wheel chair design there is ample scope to modify the design to integrate sustainability. Diffuse - Sustainability helps to deploy tools and also contact the right people and bring the right people in the right place and create accountability. The manufacturing companies are responsible for designing and manufacturing products but certain nonprofit organizations, NGO, social groups and government agencies will have the responsibility to provide the wheelchair to needy. Product innovation is one of the key strategies. Sustainable designs are an innovation in itself and design process is viewed to be a critical component to enable sustainability. Tools used for designing sustainable products should be able to meet the challenges and a sustainable model should be able to able to anticipate the unintended considerations in a better way. The current design is sustainable because it is not replacing or reinventing a new product. The existing design has been used to develop a more comfortable and convenient product. Hence, sustainable intelligence is integrated in the suggested design of wheelchair. Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Sustainability is measured in terms of environmental, financial and social factors, and success of a sustainable model is usually measured through financial and social factors. Sustainability is how the product is modified and how it is useful to human being. Sustainable design should create opportunities to make changes and it is not just to make good products but it should be able to develop the capability to make better products. Sustainability will directly relate to persistence which helps to improve sustainable designs. The triple bottom line sustainability refers to the system when the relationship between firm’s economic performance and its performance in the social and environment is assessed and in the case of wheelchair design it has been integrated. The new design is able to recognize the issue and identify the opportunities and hence, it proves to be sustainable. The new design is sustainable because it also helps to reduce the risk of crisis. Social Sustainability The social sustainability includes poverty, lack of medical care, lack of essential services and civil unrest while the financial issues are liabilities, inconsistencies, customer loyalty and declining customer value. A sustainable design should be based on human factors and the system thinking should be involved in design analysis. The wheelchair design is highly sustainable socially because it helps to improve the quality of life of people and it is especially designed for handicapped people. Environmental Sustainability The factors in environmental sustainability are pollution, acidification, land degradation, ozone depletion, water pollution, reduced biodiversity and contamination of soil. Sustainability is required to prevent degradation of a natural environment and the raw material used in the making of the wheelchair is metal which does not pose any immediately threat to the environment. The design also recommends the use of renewable source of energy such as solar energy which will further improve sustainability. Financial Sustainability The product is said to be financially sustainable if it can generate long term revenue and it is not dependent on limited resources. The wheelchair design can help a company to maximize profits and it will not threaten the financial well being of buyers and the producers. The product will not create liabilities and it will be a profitable for stakeholders because there is a high demand for quality products for handicapped. The product is a socially relevant product which will be bought even by non-profit organizations and government agencies. References Bell, S. & Morse, S. 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