AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Design of a multi-purpose motorcycle platform:

by R.G. Sarijoen




Institution: Delft University of Technology
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: motorcycle; automotive; design; platform; prototype
Record ID: 1251137
Full text PDF: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5ddb1b45-8c81-49f1-95b7-bb055341ed4f


Abstract

The East African motorcycle transport industry is one of the fastest growing motorcycle markets in the world. This has been due to a tremendous increase in wealth and standard of living over the last decades and the developments these factors trigger, such as road/infrastructure improvement and increase in quantity and quality of product-services. Motorcycles provide a quick, easy and financially accessible way for consumers to contribute to and profit from these developments. The vast distances in East Africa and the lack of a well-developed infrastructure require a smart, social and affordable motorcycle that KONEKSIE is currently developing for the taxi industry. At KONEKSIE, current design work (on both the product and the production system) has been focused primarily on their first motorcycle model, the ‘KIBO K150’. To be able to innovate in the future, it is necessary to broaden research and development activities to explore the opportunities for product portfolio expansion. As a start-up, however, KONEKSIE is faced with limited resources and is in need of an efficient and effective technical solution that enables future expansion. This project has taken on this design problem and has focused on the design of a technical motorcycle platform, which aims at reintegrating KONEKSIE’s existing technical design solutions and combining them with new design solutions to create a multi-purpose chassis platform. At its core, this technical innovation will be focused on connecting the design and the production of different motorcycle designs through a series of new and existing, interchangeable and reconfigurable design solutions. At the foundation of the platform design is a product roadmap, based on trends and developments from KONEKSIE’s market of operations: Kenya, East Africa’s leading economy. While focused on the Kenyan market, these identified market segments might also be relevant outside of East Africa, since the market developments that are at the bases of these segments, are occurring in numerous other countries and regions. The roadmap strategy is built on three high-potential (Kenyan) market segments: private and professional mobility (Type I), cargo focused mobility (Type II) and accessible mobility (TYPE III). KONEKSIE’s ‘K150’ has many commonalities with Type II and as such, an updated ‘K150’ perfectly caters to the cargo focused mobility segment. In the roadmap strategy, introduction of the Type II model serves as a transition phase towards introduction of the platform design. The platform design offers a multi-purpose solution that caters to private & professional mobility and accessible mobility. In the form of two motorcycle models, Type I and Type III, the platform is able to position two strongly differentiated models in the market, while minimising the amount of unique component designs necessary. The multi-purpose ‘design core’ of the platform centres on the design of a new chassis that allows for multiple configurations to achieve different motorcycle types. Through the design of a…