Designing a Safe, Durable, Affordable Crib

Abstract

Kids In DangerSM, a nonprofit organization, is concerned with safety and affordability of baby cribs currently available. This is because the crib is the one product where the child is intended to be left alone, and many low-income families with newborns cannot afford safe cribs. Ms. Nancy Cowles, Executive Director of Kids In Danger, contacted us to design and build a safe, affordable crib. Through our research, we have determined the targets needed for the design of such a crib. Using these target engineering specifications and customer requirements, we generated concept ideas in a morphological chart to meet these separate requirements. Using the concept ideas, five total crib concepts were generated and evaluated in a Pugh chart using a weighted scoring system based on the importance of the customer requirements. From this evaluation an "alpha" concept design was selected. Via engineering analysis, the alpha concept design was further refined, and the sides were made to be collapsible. These changes resulted in the final concept design. A working prototype of the final design was made and validation procedures were conducted. The mass production price was found to be $82.58, the overall weight was 45.2 lbs, and the cycles to failure were found to be 55,406. The predicted lifetime based on the cycles to failure analysis was 15.2 years, and computed with equations since there was a time constraint where an actual test could not be completed. We recommend a further refinement which would result in weight reduction as well as more rigorous safety and durability testing before widespread use.