This report covers the product development of a new type of extendable table for the company Karl Andersson och Söner. The company wants to expand their product collection with a new product. Karl Andersson och Söner is a well-known family company that has been located in Huskvarna since 1898, and they are producing furniture for private- and the public environment.

The aim with this project is that the product should lead to increased sales, as well as expand their collection to appeal a wider audience. The work is permeated by two issues, to achieve as good results as possible. The issues will bring up how to make a table better, in terms of the competitor’s options, and how to apply a design process to develop a table that meets the markets needs and requirements.

The design process of the work consists of strategically picked parts from three separate design processes. Work began with identifying the competitor’s similar products and their advantages and disadvantages. Of the information gathered, a survey was created about extendable tables which were then translated into requirements. Furthermore, the customer’s needs and requirements were compiled from the survey together with the client’s requirements and put in the house of quality for quality function deployment, QFD. The use of QFD gave us the interwoven demands from both customer and client that was later compiled in a final specification.

Furthermore, the sketching phase began where focus was put on the solution of the extendable mechanism, instead of the design of the table. In our case, we focused on finding a new and different solution that had not been seen before, based on the requirements that was compiled. The sketches on the extendable mechanism were evaluated using the Pugh Matrix together with the competitor’s mechanisms towards the specification, to see which solution met the requirements best. The result was that one of the competitor’s mechanism met the requirements best and the decision was taken to use the tested and well proven extendable mechanism as a starting point, but also to develop it further.

The whole design of the table gradually took shape through sketches, which were inspired by a chair that is available in Karl Andersson och Söners product collection. The final product resulted in an extendable table based on the customers and the client’s guidelines and requirements.