24-441 Design 2: Conceptualization

and Realization
The No-Hassle
Clothes Hanger
Final Report
Group B4: Mark T. Brandau, Meehyun Jang, Patrick Ward
5/12/2009


2
Contents
Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3
Motivation ................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Existing Product ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
New Product/Solution ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Design Team .................................................................................................................................. 5
Market Research ........................................................................................................................... 6
User Study ................................................................................................................................................................ 6
SET Factor Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 9
VOA ........................................................................................................................................................................ 10
Concept Generation .................................................................................................................... 11
Brainstorming 1 ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Brain Storming 2 ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
Sketches of Top Concepts ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Prototype Design ......................................................................................................................... 17
Prototype 1: ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
Prototype 2 .............................................................................................................................................................. 18
Prototype 3 .............................................................................................................................................................. 19
Conclusion from the Prototypes .............................................................................................................................. 19
Detailed Design ............................................................................................................................ 20
Design Parts ............................................................................................................................................................ 20
Engineering Analysis .............................................................................................................................................. 21
Manufacturing Techniques ..................................................................................................................................... 22
Assembly of the Parts ............................................................................................................................................. 23
Life Cycle Assessment................................................................................................................. 24
Cost Report .................................................................................................................................. 24
Evaluation .................................................................................................................................... 25
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 27
What We Learned ................................................................................................................................................... 27
Revisiting SET, VOA, and Pugh Charts ................................................................................................................. 28
What would have we done differently? .................................................................................................................. 29
Unresolved Issues and Note for Continuation of Project ........................................................................................ 29
Appendix A .................................................................................................................................. 31

3
Summary

Using the time and materials available in one semester, we have identified a need and
issue of an existing product and we searched for a new answer. After a market research, a scope
of clothes organization was chosen and we sought for any particular issue or need for the
consumer until a certain discovery was made; the current tools available for clothes shopping
creates large amount of hassle and waste of time. From this point, a concept was generated and
refined through multiple brainstorming sessions, and then final concept was made into a final
product after 3 prototypes. As the time of deadline drew closer, the design and engineering
analysis processes become much more detailed. Through the designing process, the progress and
outcomes were constantly evaluated to find flaws and maximize the result. The project itself
faced many challenges as there were various issue regard to its design, but as well as the team
work involved. As the final result, clothes hanger with variable geometry was manufactured that
fulfilled mostly to our initial evaluation of improvement from the original, existing clothes
hanger.

Introduction

Motivation
Organization is one of the key factors relating to productivity in clothing stores as it can
greatly improve the experience for both the employees and the customers. Unfortunately, the
current products available to display, store, and organize clothing articles are not entirely
promising. These insufficient products lead to many awkward behaviors that are frequently
observed in both the employees and the customers. In addition, the insufficient functionality of
the available devices causes disorganization to escalate very quickly during busy shopping hours.
It was discovered that inefficiency of organizing caused inconvenience to both shoppers and the
employees as frustrated shoppers refuse to keep clothes in an organized state which creates more
work for the employees. These employees must also make time to take care of customers other
needs in a store, which is difficult when their time is sapped away trying to keep clothes
organized. We identified this to be the problem and sought for the best solution that would
increase the efficiency of organizing devices in clothing stores.

4
Existing Product

Existing hangers used in clothing shop come in many different shapes but there are
definitely some governing features such as slight angle on the shoulder pads and the overall
triangular shape due to the hook. Even though there are variations depending on the store, the
amount of time required for users to handle them does not vary at all. This is mainly because of
the way the hanger is shaped; the hanger must have a hook extending out from the neck-opening
of the clothing articles while still supporting the clothes by applying force on the shoulder area.
Due to a requirement that clothes must be suspended in a vertical manner, the clothes hanger
must be shaped like shown above. While this shape is optimal for hanging clothing articles, it is
not very friendly for inserting and removing the hanger in and out of clothes rapidly. This hanger
is also notoriously troublesome to use if the clothes have inflexible, thin neck area such as
sweaters and even some shirts. This information was extracted from market research, which will
be discussed in detail in Market Research Section in page 6.


5
New Product/Solution
As a solution, the hanger was designed to be able to change its shape so that it can be
quickly inserted from the top, through neck-opening of clothes instead from entering from the
bottom. This variable geometry also have handles on the top so that this tool would be operated
easily using one hand, giving only a single motion for it to enter clothing and be released once
the hanger is fully inserted, and ready to be hanged promptly.


Design Team

Meehyun Jang: A senior mechanical engineering, she has a strong interest in drawing which
she used to great effect during the conceptualization of the product. During the early stage, she
was also active for brainstorming and market researching for the issue and narrowing down the
project scope.

Mark Brandau: Mark is a graduating senior entering the US Navy submarine fleet. His
main contribution to the project was in the manufacture of the prototypes. He also played a big
part in our market research and in the writing of our reports.

Patrick Ward: A senior mechanical engineering student who will be working next year in his
hometown of Washington, D.C. doing naval engineering for CSC. Handled the bulk of the
Computer-aided Design work in SolidWorks, and put verbal and interpersonal skills to good use
in taking the lead in the writing of design reports and the giving of design presentations.

6
Market Research

We looked into the market to see what could be improved at the retail level for clothing
management. We asked employees at several major retail outlets, including Marshalls, Macys
and TJ Max what their main issues with their jobs were. They described it as constantly turning
over clothing that customers had tried on and carelessly left out, or, in the fitting rooms, where
there is always turnover to be done. Employees often complained that their job is repetitive and
inefficient. Employees to whom we showed our second prototype were greatly enthused by it,
saying it would be a major help to them if we could make it work as advertised.

User Study
User 1: Home users and students
This portion of the research, unfortunately, was done prior to the conclusion made about
the correct question form. Therefore they were asked in a form of what are the inconveniences
of using the following devices? or what are the inconveniences encountered while organizing
clothes? Half of the users were interviewed by physical contact while the other half were
contacted over the internet. The users from the physical contacts were 6 students entirely from
Carnegie Mellon University. Many were still utilizing the clothes hangers with some use of
drawers, and only 1 out of 6 students did not mention any trouble. Through this interaction, it
was concluded that hangers and drawers have the following issues.
Hangers: Very inconvenient with shirts with buttons. They tend to break in the base of its
triangular structure. They are often let the clothes slip off.
Drawers: They are not deep enough.
The contacts obtained from internet were entirely students as well (2 out of 12 were high school
students. 1 out of 12 graduated but have no job. The rest were still attending college), but they
were not from the same school, and surprisingly, none of them were using hangers except for
hanging larger clothes such as winter coat.
Hangers: Not used except for coats or pants.
Drawers: Clothes become stuck in the small gap between the drawer and its containing
box. The drawer themselves get stuck. They are incapable of being spacey.
Baskets: More convenient than hangers and drawers, thus most users claimed to use
them. However the accessibility is too low (they cannot find the clothes they want
quickly).
Other odd devices the users were utilizing were pillow cases, shelves, and cubes.
All of them appeared to be substitutes with which to avoid using clothes hangers.

7

User 2: Department store employees
For these users, the questioning approach changed; now they were asked to go through
their typical day at work. Depending on the structure of the store, the workers schedule was
different.
Large Malls [Macys] : We defined this type of store to be oriented by categories.
Employees work by their station which also includes their sections of clothes. Workers
schedule flexibly changes between three tasks: taking care of customers, organizing or
cleaning up, and relocating or redistributing clothes back to display. Taking care of
customers mainly involved helping the customers check out or accepting unwanted clothes.
Organizing clothes required workers to walk around their section and pick up any items that
are not displayed correctly, such as ones abandoned by customers or dropped to the floor.
Redistributing clothes was done to return all clothes into their correct section. These clothes
pile up from multiple sources; from their station, clothes in wrong categories or section, and
clothes from the fitting room. Taking care of customers had the highest priority, but the
workers shared that the redistributing task took the longest time, thus the redistributing task is
not initiated until the clothes have piled up significantly or there are no customers in their
station. Some employees explained their tasks before the stores opens up. The tasks were
mainly organizing, but a device called folding table and folding board(more mobile) was
introduced. These tools are considered unattractive, thus they are usually hidden from
being seen by the customers. This causes the employees to fold clothes using their hands
during the time the shop is open.
Small Store [Gap, Express] : We also defined this type of store to be oriented by
categories, except in a smaller form. The tasks were very similar among the employees
except that there are no stations, thus employees are separated to take care of different
tasks (but these switch after a certain amount of time). One observation we made in the
Express left us an odd impression was that the employees were folding clothes using folding
boards in sight. After few questioning, they moved it away but they claimed that this was due
to larger quantity of clothes were displayed in a folded manner on table and shelves.
Other [TJ Max, Marshalls]: We defined this type of store to be oriented by discounts
because the categorizing in these stores was a lot more general, and everything was displayed
in a cluttered and chaotic fashion, only separated by sizes or by very general categories such
as man and woman. The workers also rotated changing their tasks which were mainly
standing by the cashier, redistributing items, and watching over the fitting room. The unique
features of these stores was that employees were required to stand by the fitting room and
wait for enough clothes to pile up on their rack, which are redistributed later into the correct
section. Because organized look of the store is not as important as category-oriented stores,
workers do not take care of clothes as much but collecting and redistributing clothes are done
in a bigger bulk.

8
The following behaviors were observed when not employees were uninterrupted.
Nearly constantly go back to pick up clothes from shelves, racks, and floors. (For
Category-oriented shops) In a large mall, because each employee must take care of each
section, they move around quite frequently.
Look for clothes missing hangers, and hangers missing clothes.
Reorient clothes to face the correct directions of they are not.
When their pile in their back station is big enough, put hangers into each clothes and
return each of them to display. (According to the worker, a mobile rack is used on very
busy days)
Use folding board to fold shirts, but very often simply use hands.

User 3: Shoppers
The same approach was used for questioning these audiences. The answers were less
thorough as they have only one task to perform; to buy the item they desire. After a few attempts
of directly approaching the customers, we moved on to observing instead. The following
behaviors were observed when uninterrupted. Both behaviors were equally found in all three
types of stores studied.
Shoppers carried items using hands and arms to hold all clothes; it seemed to lack
security as some clothes slide off or the hanger drops from the clothes. Even so, the
shoppers avoided using carts unless they were planning to buy non-clothing items.
Unless they were navigating the clothes in the correct direction, the clothes often end up
oriented in an incorrect direction by the time the customers are trying to put the cloth
back into the rack. The customers either reoriented hangers hook, or return the cloth on
the rack by reversing the way cloth faces.
They easily left clothes on the rack or any flat surfaces available if it was too
inconvenient to return them to hangers.
Push brackets of clothes on rack forcefully to create space to navigate/insert/remove
items.
Various methods for inserting hanger into clothes quickly such as shoving hangers into
clothes through the neck, or pushing their hand through the clothes, grab the hanger, and
pull it inside. All methods required two hands.


9
SET Factor Analysis
Social:
Disorganized look have many negative impact on how one view another, a group, or even
a company. Organizing and taking care of the neat look is frequently practiced among many
different groups of people, and one of the objects that often fall under need of organizing is
clothes; shirts and pants laying on the floor, or jackets and coats hanging sloppily is not a very
nice sight under various surrounding. One of the reason the clothes are found unorganized is due
to the fact that effort is required to maintain an organized area. Depending on the individual, if
the effort is too much for them, the clothes will be found unorganized more frequently. If the
current device available for clothes organization was made to be more effective, allowing it to be
used with less time and effort, people would keep their personal spaces more organized, and
department stores would too. This would benefit personal users since they would have a neater
home and that would allow them to feel less awkward about inviting friends over.

Economy:
Currently, our economy is going down, this will cause many consumers to be more
careful and sensitive how much they spend on their every need, and look for cheaper products
when available. Department store like to emphasize current clearance to the consumers and this
will may attract shoppers more due to the current economy status. As observed, the clearance
section of the stores does not categorize clothes as much. Also, they are displayed in a cluttered
fashion which forces shoppers to go through each clothing articles; more clothing will be
touched, taken out, tried on, and sloppily put back. Because of this, department stores will be
more prone to chaos and so will the shopping environment for the shoppers. The ease of access,
faster and more efficient transfers, and the organization of clothing are essential to create better
shopping environment. With a neater environment, shoppers will be happier. Happier people
spend more money at stores. Also, if things are more organized, then they may spot something
they like that they would have missed if it was chaos instead of order. On the employee side of
the house, a disorganized store caused by shopper negligence will both give them more pointless
work and make them unhappier, both of which detract from their performance. If it is far easier
for consumers to replace their stuff, then the employees will have less pointless work and be
happier, increasing their productivity.

Technology:
The techniques used for storage of items here are technological factors that can be
adapted to other industries. Additionally, there is serious gadget factor potential in this area,
since existing products are so bland.



10
VOA

[Red = Existing, Yellow = existing tied with planned, Green = Planned Improvement]
Low Med High
Emotion Adventure
Independence
Security
Sensuality
Confidence
Power
Ergonomics Comfort
Safety
Ease of use
Aesthetics Visual
Auditory
Tactile
Olfactory
Gustatory
Identity Point in time
Sense of place
Personality
Impact Social
Environmental
Core Tech Reliable
Enabling
Quality Craftsmanship
Durability


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Concept Generation

After our research, we identified several areas that could be improved through the
use of engineering. We saw that the hanger, folding board, and clothing rack could be improved
by our team. We then had a brainstorming session that outlined a large number of concepts we
could use, and came up with the following ideas for our product. Our project had total of 2 major
brainstorming sessions. The first one served as a very general and unrestricted conceptual
brainstorming whereas the second one was done with a more realistic, solution-oriented purpose.
Also note that the first brainstorming session had a much wider scope, also including ideas for
other products such as clothing rack and even drawers, as the final product had not been
specifically chosen.


Brainstorming 1
Only the concepts that are more relevant to our final design are listed here.

Clothes Hangers
Folding clothes hanger with Spring Mechanism
Pull-string retraction, possibly with some kind of lock.
Magnetic hangers
Ball hanger with hollow rack
Click-top release
Electronic alarm for misplaced clothes
Helical device wrapping around
Variable Length to vary separation amount
Color coded divider by size
Fat hanger tops to create separation
Double-sided hook or a hook that automatically goes in correct direction
Higher strength plastic or possibly cheap metal
Robot to grab and sort all of the clothes
Multiple locked settings to make it variable-width
Customizable notches to fit different types of clothing
Bendable small hanger you can wear your clothes with
Loop Hanger that is adjustable
Disconnectable hanger


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Clothes Rack
Cut notches into clothes rack
Removable pants rack (hinged)
Telescoping rack pole
Clamps to hold clothing still while ironing
Stacking baskets with lock to keep together
Template for folding board for each set of clothes
Compartmentalized clothing rack
Bendable rack
A clothes shopping Cart/Removable Rack

Customer Relations
Label showing portion of store it belongs in
Signs encouraging customer to help keep organized
Drop-bar/basket for loose items
Put extra hangers at drop-box

With this brainstorming session finished, we then selected several of the most promising
possibilities from these concepts and then ran a detailed analysis on them by creating Pugh
Charts.
Selection
Criteria
Pull
String
Magnetic
head
Push-
and-
Release
Torsional
Spring
with
lock.
Existing
Fixed
Hanger
Weight
of
Category
Ease of Use
4 1 4 4 -2 1
Reduction
of Effort
3 2 3 4 0 1
Ease of
Manufacture
-1 -1 -4 -1 0 0.6
Gadget
Appeal
1 2 3 2 0 0.25
Durability
2 2 3 1 -1 0.7
Structure
Complexity
-2 0 -2 -1 0 0.5
Possible
Cost
-2 0 -1 -1 3 0.6
Weight
1 0 0 1 2 0.3
Net Score 6.15 4.3 5.85 7.8 -0.3


13
From our Pugh analysis, we saw that a torsional spring with a lock would be the best
solution to fill in our opportunity gap. A pull string mechanism was also considered for this one,
but the torsional spring was selected because it allowed easy one-handed operation, unlike the
string, which would require the use of both hands.


Brain Storming 2
Second brainstorming was done to search for better conceptual ideas. In parallel, it was
also done to design the product in more detail. The second brainstorming session was not
carefully recorded but there are examples of the outcomes:

This is a sketch for the joint concept where all the joints are shaped so that all arms can stay in
the same plane no matter how they rotate. The sketch also includes early concept for the snap
joints.

14

This is sketch of a different version of hanger with torsional spring. The design was made so that
it uses two handles instead of one. The angular distance between two handles is crucial since the
first handle is used to unlock the clothes hanger so that it can become collapsed. This design
was disregarded due to too much number of parts as well as undesirably high amount of
complication.

15

The outcome of the second prototype did not drastically change the direction from the top
concepts chosen from the first prototype, but it provided the project sufficient concepts for it to
develop more into the detail.
Sketches of Top Concepts

Pull-String Hanger

Push
Simple folding clothes hanger with stoppers






16
Push-Button Locking Mechanism
Torsional Spring in Joint
Simple folding clothes hanger with stoppers

17
Prototype Design

Prototype 1:

Purpose:
Prior to building this prototype, the brainstorming stage had reduced all of our initial
candidates down to four concepts. Even though, through Pugh chart analysis, the ranks of each
concept were pretty clear, due to each concepts unique features, especially for the joint
constructions, it was difficult to completely disregard any one idea. Therefore, this prototype was
created prior to officially choosing one design, with the hope that a simple prototype would
reveal the better concepts to use based on movement constraints and any problems encountered
with the prototype. It was also created to be made quickly and cheaply and give us the option of
trying out multiple designs at one time.

Construction:
This step of prototype itself had its own prototype and the final prototype was reached
after multiple tries and change in plan of construction. As a result, a cardboard prototype with
four joints and a stopper was created. This prototype design was expected to remove the
complicated need of multiple locks for joints but instead operate only with one lock and release
mechanism on the top joint. How it works it that, when an amount of weight is applied to two top
arms of the structure, the lower two arms would collapse upward, but they will be prevented
from actually collapsing by a catcher was installed at an arbitrary location where the lower
arms and the upper arm intersect.




18
Prototype 2

Purpose:
This prototype has the same basic role as the first prototype, except that it had a more
elaborate construction. This prototype was built in order to see whether the hanger will behave
correctly with its peculiar geometry along with stoppers installed, especially when the user
want to collapse the clothes hanger, and return it to its original position using handles.

Construction:
Similar to the last prototype, the basic components of the model were four heavy-paper
joints, two identical upper arms, two identical lower arms, and a hook at the top. However, this
time the arms were constructed from wires which were wrapped around each joint to reduce the
friction. These wires were then wrapped in cardboard sleeves to provide extra stability, as the
wires were very malleable and not very rigid. Also to add rigidity, the spool-joints were
extended out to provide a guiding track for the arms as they rotated and prevent unwanted
twisting. Also, additional foam pieces were added near the side joints to serve as the catcher
mechanism. Lastly, to prevent bending in wires, they became secured between two cardboard
arms. The lengths of the card board arms are not long enough to touch the spool.


19
Prototype 3

Purpose:
The third prototype, which was the last prototype that was built before the construction of
the final design, was made to test one of the concerns of a new change in the design; the scissor-
like handle operation unlike the previous prototype where each handles were simple protrusion
from each of the arms. In this design, because the handles are in scissor like orientation,
squeezing action on the system will collapse will only apply more load onto the hanger, only
causing it to press on the stopper without resulting any movement.
Construction:
It was constructed from cut wooden dowel rods, using thick paper rolls as the joints, and
a hook cut off a conventional clothes hanger as the hook. The scissor-like handles were
implemented hoping that it would work better if an elastic mechanism is applied, but because
third prototype was not very well constructed, it resulted no new insights.
Conclusion from the Prototypes
One of the key facts we learned during our prototyping was the idea that we could use the
hangers geometry to hold it up rather than a spring or a lock, something we didnt know until
we constructed our first prototype. From the second prototype, we concluded that a scissoring
mechanism, which we attempted to implement, wasnt practical.



20
Detailed Design

Design Parts

Custom Made Parts: The final product consisted of total of 6 separate parts; 5 out of 6
of the parts were custom-made while one was purchased. The custom-made parts were
manufactured using multiple 3D printers available on CMU campus. Multiple printers were used
in order to meet the time requirement as well as due to each machines different size constraints
as some parts were bigger than the printing area of the printer. All of the in-house components
were modeled in SolidWorks to accurately detail the final design, and was printed in the material
of ABS plastic. All the details of the dimension specifications of the manufactured parts is
displayed in Appendix A We employed no purchased or electrical parts in this model in an effort
to keep costs down.

Purchased Parts: Only one portion of the final design consisted of purchased
component, that component being the torsional spring. The details of the purchased springs
specifications are shown below. This specific spring was chosen mainly for its wind direction
and number of active coils. Wind direction and the leg length were chosen to fit into the shape
and size of the final product, especially for the handle area; two handles must cross each other,
which require one handle to overlap. This gap between two handles make flat springs difficult to
be implemented. It can be said the same for other dimensions such as spring outside diameter
and the leg length. Note that there were few changes in the final design in order to fit for the
spring as well.

Specification Detail
Material Steel Music Wire
Deflection Angle 180
Wind Direction Clockwise (Left-Hand) Wound
Spring Outside Diameter .803
Wire Diameter 0.078
Leg Length 2.000
Maximum Rod Outside Diameter 0.500
Spring Length at Torque 0.660
Number of Active Coils 7
Torque 10.446in-lbs

21


Engineering Analysis

We ran several analyses on our final model. We had to determine if our handles were
ergonomic enough for users to handle comfortably, and we also had to determine whether or not
it our parts would mechanically fail under standard loading. The more important analysis was
the ergonomic analysis we ran on the handles we used. The handles were intended for one
handed operation, and as such we designed them so that you could easily grip with one hand.
However, in addition to that, we had to ensure that when the handles were squeezed, the hands
remained comfortable. To do that, we designed the handles in such a fashion that as you
squeezed, your hand slid down, remaining comfortable, not crossing over, and sliding right into
the notch we carved for it.

In addition to the ergonomic analysis, we ran FEA analysis on our parts to determine if
they would fail under load.


22


We analyzed the snap joints, which we determined were the most likely point of
mechanical failure on the final assembly. Since we could only do proper FEA analysis on a part,
it was important to make sure that the conditions given to the part will be as close as possible to
the case where the part is assembled into the complete system. Boundary condition was applied
on the flat, round surface of the joint, and the neck area of the joint since both of the surface
will be in full contact when assembled. The loading was applied on the thinner part of the
mushroom shaped snap joint and the magnitude was 10N. This number was chosen so that the
clothes hanger can hold up to 2Kg of clothes. Initially, this was thought to be an overestimate
because of the angled surface of the top arm, distribution of clothing weight on the clothes
hanger would not be converted to a point force at the end of the joint. Unfortunately, this was
verified to be an underestimate because it did not take account of weight of the material; ABS
plastic. Based on the results of this FEA analysis, we determined that the maximum stress on the
snap joints was well within acceptable tolerances; the maximum stress in the joint was 10.4 times
smaller than the yield strength of ABS. Our loading conditions assumed the maximum loading
conditions expected under normal wear and tear. This analysis did not account for any extreme
loading conditions, but those are outside normal use.

Manufacturing Techniques
In order to construct our final prototype, we utilized the Art Departments 3D Printer,
which took our final CAD model and output a perfect match in ABS plastic. While a good
method for rapid prototyping, this is a poor method for mass production, since it is far more
expensive to use the 3D printer than is economical for mass production. No other methods were
tested as other machines available could not manufacture parts in plastic but aluminum instead. It
was important that our final design is not heavy, thus 3D printer was utilized. Also, because most
of parts of our design were rather miniscule, printing method appeared to be most optimal.


23
Assembly of the Parts


Our final design was made so that each part can be easily assembled by applying light
force into the snap joints to drive the mushroom-shaped joint into its slot. However, in the earlier
attempt of assembling printed parts, it required too much force. Using hammer, the parts were
able to be assembled but it resulted fracture in some of the snap joints. After this mistake, the
design joints were modified to have more clearance between the protruding head and its hole.
For the final assembly, a total of 7 parts were printed. These parts are displayed and
described on Appendix A; hook part, two handles, two top joints and two bottom joints. Once
our final parts had been 3D printed, it was assembled in a similar manner as the previous
assembling attempt with the test print, but required very light tap of hammer. The use of the
hammer may have been unnecessary, but doing so helped the joints remain flush throughout the
process which put less stress on the parts of the mechanism. The bottom joints were assembled
first, and then the spring was inserted into the hole available in the top joints handles. After the
spring was secure, the top handles snap joints were assembled into the holes made on the hook
part. As a result, these joints allowed full rotation of the parts while preventing the hangers parts
from twisting and moving out of the proper plane.


24
Life Cycle Assessment

If our final design was mass produced, it would require a great deal of ABS
plastic, or whichever other plastic the injection molding process utilized. The manufacturing will
also require stocks of springs which would be made of steel. Since it would be optimal to use
injection molding to make all the parts of the hanger, a heavy amount of heat input would be
required. Fortunately, there would not be much excess material that will become unusable since
they will be in liquid form to cast instead of other manufacturing techniques that creates excess
waste material such as forging or extruding. By comparison, this product will use more
resources as well as manufacturing time and cost than the existing hangers. Therefore this
product is not very energy efficient during the manufacturing part of the life cycle.
While in use in the market sector, the newly designed product has an advantage when it
comes to damage since if the bottom joints break the two bottom joints are identical and
therefore easily replaceable;. This reduces the chance of the hanger becoming completely useless
because a piece of part has failed, which would reduce the amount of waste from the users. Also,
all the part except the spring should be recyclable as the spring is the only part of the product that
is not made of plastic. For this part of the life cycle, our final design would have more advantage
by reducing amount of waste.
Overall, it is concluded that our product will not be entirely environmentally friendly due
to significantly high amount of energy and resources required to make a single unit of product
compared to the existing product which has no extra parts, but is made of single piece of
material. Even though our product showed reduces in waste during the consumer part of the
cycle, it would not overcome the negative impact done by the manufacturing process; the
prevention of hanger losing its usability completely is not significant enough.

Cost Report
We spent approximately 32 man-hours of engineering time between the research, CAD
modeling, and assembly of our product. Assuming that an engineering man-hour costs $40, this
puts our final engineering costs at $1280. Our labor costs, which would be significantly less
costly per hour, probably about $20 an hour, would be about $80, since we spent about 4 man-
hours in labor on our final prototype. The manufacturing costs of our final prototype were high
about $270 for the unit but that was due to the nature of the manufacturing as a 3D print. Once
mass produced, injection molding could likely reduce unit costs to less than $1 a unit for
manufacturing costs.


25
Itemized list:
3D print of bottom joints from Chemical Engineering Machine Shop - $70
Torsional springs - $68.95
o 3D print of components from Digital Fabrication Lab - $ 129.49
Total: $268.44

Evaluation

The final version of our project was had some successful components and some that were
a little disappointing. One highly successful aspect of the final product was the motion of the
hinges and their range of travel. A user could ergonomically apply pressure all of the way up to
a vertical position of the handles and easily get the hanger width down below the 10 centimeter
mark we set as our goal based on the average width of a shirt neck. Also, the hinge joints were
highly successful at creating a snag-free, single-plane motion that allowed our design to very
easily slip in and out of shirt-necks.

Operation of Hanger in SolidWorks

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Operation of Hanger in Physical Prototype
However, the one disappointing aspect of our design was the functionality of the torsional
spring we used. In the tests we ran preparing for the implementation of the spring, we performed
all of our analysis assuming that the spring applied a moment only in the plane of desired
motion. However, due to the spacing created by the coils a twisting moment was created in an
orthogonal direction that put some strange stresses on the hanger that were not tested previously.
In addition, the twisting created a good deal of rubbing between the handles that created a lot of
friction and made it very difficult for the spring to smoothly move the part. Therefore, the
prototype ended up being used predominately without the spring which enabled very smooth
movement and a good demonstration of our product. In order to better optimize the designs
functionality, however, we would need to either find a truly single-planar torsional spring or
revert to our old design which had the inverted bottom angle and so relied on geometry rather
than spring energy to operate.

These shortcomings aside, the overall user-response was very positive. The majority of
those who were shown the product acknowledged that they themselves had problems with the
problem addressed by the hanger, and also said that the design we presented would be a very
clever and very functional solution to the problem. The selling point that seemed to be the most
pleasing was different based on who was asked. While the commercial-setting employees most
appreciated the speed aspect, the individual consumers addressed great interest in its use for
specialty garments such as sweaters and dresses that would be especially to use hangers with,
and that might be damaged by carelessness while using the hanger. In each market segment,
however, we got great response and so we really feel like we ended up making a useful product
with a legitimate opportunity gap to be filled.


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In the final manufacture and distribution of our product, there are several key points that
we figured out will be important. One would be the gadget appeal of the snap joints we used,
with demonstrations of their smooth operation and the way that they hold their disk shape to
prevent snags in the clothing. Another would be to devote a lot of attention to making people
realize the hassles that they put up with using regular hangers to make them realize the ways that
our product could benefit them. Finally, the key point would vary based on who the target
audience is. For large-scale chains we would need to have effective demonstrations laid out that
show how much efficiency can be improved by our product with every article of clothing, and
thus make the case of how much more effective their employees could be if our product was
implemented. As for home-users, it would be very important to show how effective it is on the
specialty garments, as they will not interact with the hanger as much and therefore will need to
see significant improvement in each use to make it worthwhile.

Conclusion

What We Learned
Through lectures and group works, we felt our exposure to the earlier stage of design
process was extremely valuable. While some parts were intuitive, such as brainstorming and
researching sessions, optimizing the outcome and method for effective early design process was
obtained as well as identifying flaws of our own methods. During the early design process, it was
identified that the communication between teammates were not very sufficient and believed that
tasks such as brainstorming and researching could be achieved individually. We decided that this
must be rectified due to insufficient results as well as extreme difficulty of processes because
each of the tasks was being completed by a single person separately. It was also noted during this
time that when researching and brainstorming occurs in parallel, the results improved. As we
moved on in the design process, our function as a group improved significantly, and much more
progress was made of higher quality. These group work skills were another place that we grew a
great deal over the course of the semester as a result of this project.
We felt we received a very rare opportunity to see how engineers must explore the users
in order to identify the problem with the highest opportunity. It was not entirely intuitive in the
beginning that the way the problems and questions are posed the consumer can affect how they
respond. We treasure the researching guides given to us to improve communication between the
consumers, and we believe that method used on this stage can create very strong impact on the
final design.
The general process of the entire design was rather intuitive, but it felt significant for us
that we were exposed to some of the details and its methods. For example, the concept of

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prototype was very easy to understand, but to be exposed to its true purpose, evaluating
discoveries and going through multiple iterations made us take a second look at what we are
actually doing and how the design evolves through the changes we make. We also felt it was
important that we were assigned to make a short progress report on prototypes as we were to
evaluating our own process and were able to pick out flaws in our method and approach. We are
slightly disappointed that we failed to make a very detailed prototype that showed clear
improvements. Due to lack of effort in planning ahead, our third prototype would not give us
many insights what issues or advantages our final product would have. We also felt that this
hindrance reduced our maximum possible experience of the process of prototyping.
This was not done through any specific activity, but we learned, throughout the process,
important considerations that must be put into the design. For example, learning about the
evaluation of a life cycle of a product left us a great impression. It was not something that was
reminded us to think about during early conceptualization, but it was extremely important to take
it into consideration as all the product is part of the giant cycle within our environment.

We all entered the class assuming once we had identified the problem we would
implement a solution and be done with it. We also learned a lot about the entire process of going
from initial design to final physical implementation. Moving from problem identification to
concept generation via brainstorming, to concept selection via Pugh analysis, all the way to final
prototyping really gave us an appreciation of the entire arc or the design process, something we
hadnt been through before in other classes and it was really beneficial. The brainstorming
session and guidance we received from the course faculty were in particular useful towards our
overall understanding of the design process.

Revisiting SET, VOA, and Pugh Charts
As for our goals, we accomplished much of what we set out to in our SET and VOA
goals. Socially, our product could easily lead to neater, better organized homes and retail outlets,
as well as creating a far nicer and neater shopping environment. That would carry over into our
economic factor successes, with the neater store and better environment encouraging people to
shop at the location using our product. Our product would also increase employee efficiency,
leading to higher profits for the parent company. As for our VOA factors, we accomplished
much of what we set out to do there as well. In the areas of durability and comfort, we created a
product that is flatly superior to the existing clothes hanger. Our product is also significantly
easier to use, which was the primary goal of our project. The aesthetic look of our product is
also much better, creating a look that makes our product look good rather than the appearance of
existing products, which look cheap. Overall our final prototype accomplished much of what our
SET and VOA analyses indicated we needed to do.


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Looking back at our Pugh Analysis, we accomplished most of what we set out to do with
that set of criteria. Our two biggest goals were to improve ease of use and reduction of effort.
While we solidly accomplished ease of use, the reduction of effort category still leaves some
room for improvement. As for the other criteria, our hanger certainly has a great deal of gadget
appeal, and while it is harder to manufacture and costs more than existing products the long-term
savings from increased employee efficiency our product allows for would offset these.
Unfortunately we believe our final product had significantly large negative effect on the ease of
manufacturing criteria as well as some other important criteria that was not mentioned in the
Pugh chart. First off, our final design uses much more amount of material in order to be
produced compared to the original clothes hanger. Secondly, our final design requires act of
assembling. While joints were required to accomplish our design, it adds too much complexity of
the overall product and will not be ideal for a product that must be mass-produced very quickly.
However, we believe the complexity was added in order to fulfill the project requirement and
decided not to update our Pugh chart.

What would have we done differently?
We see many things would have done differently in our project. One of the biggest
weaknesses came during the prototyping process where we did not use our opportunity to make
huge design leaps effectively, instead settling for a more gradual evolution that was less helpful.
Toward the end, this left too many significant design changes to implement which led to such
difficulties as the torsional spring operation. We believe that if we went through more iterative
process creating prototypes, these issues would have been addressed earlier and created a more
functional final product.

In addition, early on in the design process the group coordination was a major weakness
for us. This led to a lack of progress that put us into an early hole as there was not enough
collaboration to accomplish enough in a timely fashion. While we improved during the later
stages of the project, we certainly would start out the project working much better in the early
stages were we to go through this again, and we feel confident that this would yield better
results.

Unresolved Issues and Note for Continuation of Project
The major unresolved issue at present is that our hanger does not allow for easy one-
handed operation. One of the issues was friction between the legs of the spring and the ABS
hole supporting the spring. In fact, the support for the spring was not very well constructed, thus
the spring could not apply equal amount of torque onto both top legs, which caused irregular
movements and prevent two arms from smoothly folding together. Also, our plan to use a
torsional spring did not consider the extra torque into the unwanted axis; the torque that will
cause snap joints on the hook to pop out. As such, our final prototype was imperfect. By either
creating a torsional spring that does not impart a twisting moment on the hanger or by returning

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to a pure geometry system for maintaining shape similar to our second prototype, we feel this
issue could be easily addressed. Future teams attempting this project should look into either of
these as solutions to fully finish the design.

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Appendix A
Engineering drawing of custom made parts
Hook



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Bottom Joints
There are two bottom joints in the final assembly. Note that both are identical and were both
manufactured using specifications shown below.




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Right Handle
Note that when assembled, this handle is actually interacted in the left side.


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Left Handle
Note that when assembled, this handle is actually interacted in the right side.

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Right Top Arm




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Left Top Arm