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DESIGNING A 100% RECYCLABLE ALUMINUM CHAIR

Preparation
The situation document below, video link and transcript will give you some information
concerning the meeting you will participate in for the oral exam. The role cards give you some
information about the possible roles you will have to play in the meeting.

In preparation for the meeting oral exam you should:

❖ Read the information in the situation and watch the video (with transcript)
❖ Read the role cards and prepare all of them. The role you play will be decided on the
day of the oral. Think about what you could say as each person. What point you want
to make and how to do it.
❖ Revise and prepare typical English for meetings i.e. agreeing, disagreeing, making
suggestion, asking questions, interrupting politely etc.

The exam
On the day of the exam you practical (TP) groups will be divided in into subgroups. The first
group of students to go will be given their roles and then have 15 minutes to prepare what they
want to say. After this time the meeting will begin and last for as long as possible up to 45
minutes.
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Situation - You work for a Swedish company called Hydro. It has three factories:

- in Finspang where they extrude big profiles on advanced CNC machines;

- in Vetlanda where they specialize in high-tech aluminium building, flooring and transport
systems;
- in Stockholm where they manufacture rolled aluminium products and where aluminium-based
products are recycled.

And it also has 2 other facilities, a sales office which is located in Gothenburg & a research facility
in Karmoy, Norway.

Your company offers solutions for machining, assembly and surface treatment such as anodizing.
Hydro experts help design everything from customized, extruded profiles to finished components
or products in recyclable aluminium.

Currently, the marketing manager has asked you to work on a project which is about designing &
producing a new chair, with a famous English furniture designer called Tom Dixon.

Tom Dixon’s specifications for this chair, are the following:

- to imagine a chair using images of 1950’s sports-cars seats;

- to press the chair in one piece without any joints to make it “more pure, minimal and
modern”;
- to make it as light as possible;
- to only use 100% recyclable aluminium;
- to make it comfortable;
- It has to be tough enough to survive outdoors;
- The surface needs to have a nice shine to it.

Stephanie HORNIG, a young designer working with Tom, has designed two chairs:

Design A: Design B: You are attending a meeting at Hydro

offices in Gothenburg, to talk about the
first tests and issues with the two designs.

Design B is too heavy, and the design is not

as nice as chair A but it is easy to
manufacture & more comfortable.

Design A looks nicer and is lighter but

difficult to manufacture with Tom Dixon’s
specifications and probably less
comfortable.
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Stephanie HORNIG
Tom DIXON

Junior Designer working with Tom Dixon

Famous Designer

Office: London, ENGLAND

Office: London, ENGLAND

Task: Designing a chair that looks nice but that is also

Task: You are in charge of leading a team of
serviceable (on which for example you could hang your
designers in London. You regularly meet with the
bag & your jacket).
Hydro team in Sweden to make sure the designs
imagined by your team can be manufactured.
You used images of 1950’s sports cars to design the
chair.
You know you always have to convince engineers and
scientists that things are possible although they
At the last meeting you presented several designs from
often try to choose the easiest option which is
your team and two designs were retained:
usually detrimental to your art. Nevertheless, you
are open-minded, imaginative and you also have a
- one which is a shell on legs (design A)
whole team of young designers working for you.
- one which is more comfortable but weighs more
than the first one (design B)
A sentence you can say at the meeting: “We’re not
wedded to this exact shape. So, the whole purpose
You goal is to make sure one of these 2 designs is going
of this meeting is to try and understand the
to be used with as little alterations as possible. You have
limitations & opportunities of aluminum and to
already changed the chair to make it useable outdoors
modify the ideas to suit the realities of production.”
as well as indoors adding a/several hole(s) in it to let the
rain slip through it. Your team is overloaded with work
and you would like to move fast on this project.

Anders HELANDER
Senior Design Engineer at Hydro
Office: Stockholm, SWEDEN
Problem: You’ve tested the prototypes. There’s a
problem with both chairs. They bend too much when
you seat. As a result, the chairs are not stable
enough. You need to tell Dr. Chojak Halseid about it
to see what could be done to the material to solve
this issue.
There’s also another problem with Tom Dixon’s
specifications. He would like to press the chair in
one piece without any joints to make it “more pure,
minimal and modern” but it is impossible to do that
with the current machines used for forming &
pressing. Either the design has to be changed or the
machines have to be improved.
Dr. Malgorzata CHOJAK HALSEID
Senior Research Scientist at Hydro
Office: Karmoy, NORWAY
Task: You’ve performed several tests on aluminum
samples to find the best shine for the chair and you have
brought them to this meeting. Present those samples and
talk about the tests you’ve done.
Problem: Anders Helander tells you that the chair(s)
bend too much. You need to address this problem, run
some more tests on the material and find solutions.
Think and talk about possible solutions.
You also believe that there’s something that needs to be
changed in the design to add some stability to the chair.
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Hilde KALLEVIG
Head of branding / marketing at Hydro
&
Chair of the meeting
Office: Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Task: You would like to use this project to promote
aluminum. It is non-corrosive & light, two
advantages you could demonstrate with the
launching of that chair on the market. That’s why
there are two specifications that you firmly fight
for:
- the light weight (to show aluminum is light);
- the outdoor use (to show it is non-
corrosive);
- And as it is a promotional campaign, the
design has to be attractive too!
So, you tell the others that design A is the best one
although it might not be the best in terms of
comfort or the easiest to manufacture.
You already have a lot of clients in the building
industry but entering the realm of interior design
would be a good opportunity for the company to
promote its aluminum know-how and products &
diversify.
Dr. Hartmut JANSSEN
Head of innovation / R&D at Hydro
Office: Vetlanda, SWEDEN
Problem: Tom Dixon would like to press the chair in one
piece.
You explain that the machines at Hydro cannot perform
this task at the moment but you think this is technically
possible. You explain how.
You also tell him that it will require some time for the
development of the new tooling.
Your department will also need some money to buy some
of the materials & parts necessary to build that tooling.
You have already sent various quotations for this to the
finance department but you haven’t had any answers yet.
You don’t want to be held responsible for any delay it
might cause, the finance department should hold
responsibility for this.
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Paul MATTERSON
Mattias ERIKSSON

Financial Director at Hydro

Head of Sales at Hydro

Office: Gothenburg, SWEDEN

Office: Gothenburg, SWEDEN

Problem: Dr. Hartmut Janssen, the head of R&D, needs

Problem: You think that the new tooling required
some money to buy materials & parts for the
for the manufacture of the chair will increase its
development of new tooling for the manufacture of the
price. It might mean that there will be less chairs
chair.
sold on the market.

The problem is that the R&D department has already

You believe this project is really too expensive.
exceeded their budget by 10%. And you think that the
The design should be changed to sell more chairs
invoices you have received are too expensive.
i.e. joints should be added to facilitate the
manufacture.
You ask Mattias Eriksson, the head of sales, what are
the sales projection for the launch of that new chair.
Prepare two projections for the first year of sales
You need to analyze the situation before spending that
and present them to the participants:
money.

- One projection where you sell more chairs

After Mr. Eriksson’s presentation of year-1 projections
at a lower price (a chair with joints)
ask him if it might be possible to sell the chair at a
- Another where you sell less chairs at a
higher price the first year to recover the R&D costs
higher price (a chair in one piece).
and then lower the price afterwards.

Olof JOHANSSON

Executive Secretary at Hydro

You are in charge of taking the minutes of the

meeting.

Take notes and get ready to present a summary of

this meeting to Hydro Chief Executive Officer.
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Why engineers and designers should collaborate for sustainable design

Innovation happens when experts unite. Watch as our experts and industry figures join in collaborations to create innovative
and sustainable solutions in aluminium. The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFSnl7nR7Mo

TRANSCRIPT: The shape of the chair is how we make uh the most interesting and attractive tube.

When we started to talk to Tom Dixon about making this chair we thought that we should document it
because this is a good story about many things. It's the story about aluminium but it's also a story
about working together. What can happen when experts come together and unite through a common
project.

The whole purpose of this meeting is trying to understand the limitations and the opportunities of
aluminium, and modifying the ideas to suit the realities of production right. The trick isn't the designing
it's the product development. It short-circuits a lot of debate and discussion and fantasies, if you're
in with the engineers and the people that know about manufacturing at the beginning.

My experience working with Tom and Stephanie has been really positive. It is interesting to see how
our world can meet their world.

I think it's very important that different industries meet each other and by exchanging ideas we can
find something new and exciting for the future and push technology forward.

I'm very pleased to see that we have connected the people in the value chain of aluminium that doesn't
normally talk to each other. I think a lot of good things will come out of that.

Really fun to work with him absolutely. He have a lot of ideas.

The good design will come from knowing how it's made and from the reality of things, and not from
something that comes from our minds.

I think it's very exciting to be a part of a project with a designer like with Tom Dixon, and with his
chair. I suppose that this chair will last for a very long time as will be made of aluminium.

I think this is a fantastic project. Hydro is attractive to others because we have the full supply chain
and also the full production chain in-house. So, we are a fully integrated company starting at bauxite
and in the end ending up with recycling technology and processes.

I think these collaborations in some ways are the best because you bring very different skills to the
table. From our side we've learned a lot from talking to Tom and his team, and for us it's important to
understand how aluminium can be used by the end-user, and I also think that we are teaching something
to Tom and his team. We think that perhaps this can inspire others to come together and do something
similar