Xtentable

The aim of this project is to design a suitable product for the company “Hapro”. Hapro is a company which manufactures roofboxes, roof bike carriers, tanning beds and other skin care products.
The Xtentable is a product for the travel line for Hapro and attempts to tackle problems in the camping space.

Company Profile

Internal and External Analysis

Hapro is a Dutch international company founded in 1982 based in the Netherlands. The company is a manufacturer of sun beds and other similar skin improvement equipment and additionally car accessories like roof boxes, bike carriers and roof carriers.
Hapro has focused since a long time on products they can produce with their core manufacturing method: thermo vacuum forming. This means that their portfolio consists mainly of products formed by large, vacuum-formed shells. Hapro has split their portfolio into two contrasting branches: Beauty & Travel. This had a logical reason, as they can fully utilize their manufacturing expertise and knowledge in the production of sunbeds and roof boxes. It also has the advantage of allowing them to focus on a different product in different seasons, to never have a dead spot in the year.
As a company Hapro greatly values their approach to making luxury products affordable. Many of the products in their portfoio are a lot cheaper when compared to their competitors, all while not compromising on quality or function. They have a very pragmatic approach to all their operations in the company: all their products and production are practical.

Internal Analysis: SWOT

Trend Analysis : DEPEST

External Analysis: SWOT

Assessing Strengths that provide a sustainable competitive advantage: VRIO

VRIO aims to assit in ascertaining the key strengths of a company. This helps appreciate the expertise Hapro has in manufacturing, high standards in design and technology and its connections...

Search Areas

Because of the potential banning of tanning beds and the growing market in travel, the focus would be on the travel market since the tanning beds were not a long term solution. So, new sub markets in the travel segment were searched for by employing this technique. At the end of the search areas session, 4 new sub markets under travel were established. These were areas with the most potential for Hapro. They are: bikes, camping, alternate luggage solutions and energy efficient travel.

Mapping the search areas: ANSOFF

The right hand top corner of the ANSOFF is empty due to the fact that Hapro already lacks a coherent brand image. As a result of this, the decision was made to focus largely on the travel market and project a strong and focused brand. All of the explored avenues showed promise.

Hapro being a company that has a large customer base in the Netherlands allows for explorating in the bike travel segment.
The camping market has always been an avenue for exploration. Hapro has been working on launching roof tents as well. This market is growing further with post pandemic travel.
Luggage restrictions pose a need for new luggage solutions for all modes of travel.
The energy crisis results in the need for new solutions that are sustainable.

Problem Statement

To develop a product that focuses on innovative areas of the travel market and aligns with Hapro’s brand image and strengths.

Brainstorming

To arrive at high-quality ideas, there were three full brainstorming sessions. These focused on four areas in particular, as they had been identified as interesting innovation areas in the previous business analysis. These main themes were bicycle travel, car camping, luggage and energy.
The last thing to do when these ideation waves were over was to run SCAMPER to improve the quality of the existing ideas and perhaps extract some new ones. In combining, modifying and eliminating (etc.) our concepts, some new interesting thoughts emerged. These included foldable tables that fit into boxes, from which a foldable table/tent convertible was obtained by combining with a tent. Other convertibles were also explored, such as a bicycle basket to a seat or a barbecue to a fridge.

Market Analysis and User Data

When the pandemic started, people were forced to stay indoors and spend their holidays in the Netherlands itself. As a result of this, camping numbers of 2020-2021 skyrocket compared to the years before. As restrictions were phased out, people had the reflex of suddenly going further away, since it had been a long time they could do so. As a result of this, the numbers going down again after 2021. However, compared to the average of campers before 2020, there still is an increase of 11,26%.
The conclusion we thus can draw is that there still is a big market for camping gear in the Netherlands.

There was a dip in the number of car trips because of the pandemic, but ever since then there has been a steady rise. There has been a 9,09% increase in the number of long car trips taken in the year from 2020 to 2021. This is a steeper hike than it used to be before the pandemic. In the pre-pandemic era, the hike was about 5,88% per year in the number of long car trips taken. The post pandemic travel has resulted in a 54,59% hike in annual rate of increase of travel.

Analysis and Choice

Weighted criteria method

This method scores each concept on the same criteria, it makes it easier to compare them without losing sight of what is most important. Since the concepts are very different, this comes in handy.

Reflection

Multiple problems came up while working on the chosen concept, which were both technical in nature as concerning the business context.

Putting the bags on the roof, aligned transverse to the roof as we imagined it, proved very clumsy. First of all, the build-up of air because of the sudden elevation on the roof would be huge. The bags are not aerodynamically modified to overcome this, and would cause considerate resistance and vibration that could be heard inside the car.

Next, turning the bags for them to be lengthwise on the car also proved not to be an option. Even though this would solve the previous problem, putting them behind each other would simply not fit on the roof of a car.

Lastly, the mounting of the bags on the roof is also questionable. Standardised mountings of roofboxes run horizontally on the roof, whereas our concept was made imagining only the vertical ones. In order to solve this and be able to fix the bags anyplace on the roof, there should be a permanent platform to fix them upon. This would completely destroy the purpose of the concept, since it would then only differ little from a conventional roofbox.
Further, the innovation criterion proved to be more important than first imagined.
With choosing the duffle bags as a product, Hapro does not appeal to new customers. This is just another product that fits perfectly well in their portfolio, but does not bring new things to the table.
On top of that, with this product we would enter the market of bags. Since this is a market that has extremely specialised players and is almost completely satisfied, Hapro is not classified to compete in it.

Concluding this reflection, it was found to better go for another concept with more potential for the company and that did not have these technical challenges.
After all, when rearranging the weighted objectives with innovation having the higher weight of 25 and price going back to 15, concept 2 wins. of course

Program of Criteria

Final Design

Materials and Production

The shell and the two table components of the Xtentable are going to be manufactured by vacuum forming.
The shell and the two table components are going to be made from ABS due to its cost, weight and mechanical properties.
The legs are going to be made through extrusion as that is a common method for making uniform metal parts.
The legs are going to be made of aluminium due to its cost, weight and mechanical properties.

User Testing

Persona, Story and Interview

An avid camper who likes travelling by road

Jan is a 30 year old man who enjoys adventure and camping. His wife and he go camping every chance they get. He finds that he has trouble finding a comfortable sleeping and eating situation on all his trips. He is considering purchasing a roof tent but this would limit the roof storage he could have. He is looking for a compact solution to help him have everything that he would need.

A user test was conducted using the storytelling method with a sketch a scale prototype. The potential user was presented a story and a sketch and afterwards let them interact with the scale prototype for the folding mechanism.

Here is the story that was used:

Jan and his wife are going camping for the weekend. They load up their convertible table-tent, sleeping bags and luggage. They get to the campsite in the evening and decide to make some sandwiches for dinner. They roll out their table from the trunk and set it up on the table mode by pulling it out and unfolding the table and its legs. After dinner, they sit by the campfire for sometime till it is time to sleep. This time they want to set up the product in the tent mode. They unfold the tabel again and attach the canvas onto the car with hooks and to the table with the velcro. They roll out their sleeping bag on the table and are ready to sleep.

Insights

User thought that the product would help serve as a table to cook on since she never has proper facilities for that
User likes that she does not have to bring an additional tent along.
User is excited at the possibility of going camping even in the rain as she will not have to sleep on the ground.
User wants to ensure that the size of the product is as small as possible as she still wants space for all her other camping supplies and food.
User wants a method of easily carrying the product up and back to her house when she is not using it
User would like mesh windows for air curculation and to prevent bugs from getting in
User is willing to pay about €200 for the product
User is overall excited at the possibility of this product.

“I think it makes camping more accessible. It brings some of the luxuries like a dining room, table or a proper bed to the outdoors.”

Current Market, Competitors and Cost price estimate

Sustainability

Reuse of product components

The product is entirely separable, that means that if one of the parts breaks, that part can alone be replaced. The rest of the product can still be used. The product is hence easy to repair.

Recycling materials

The material used for the majority of the product is ABS plastic. This is recyclable. Aluminium which is used for the table legs can also be recycled.