Abstract
Headrests are an essential safety feature in automobile seats as they are not only for comfort, but more importantly prevent, or reduce the severity of whiplash injuries caused by rear-end collisions. In addition to functional obligations, headrests must also adhere to sustainable design principles, which encompass the reduction of emissions, conservation of resources, and environmental friendliness, for more ecologically aware future. This paper presents a problem modelling process based on the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) method, starting with Product Analysis of an adjustable type of automotive headrests. Three steps have been performed in Product Analysis that are Component Analysis, Structural Analysis, and Function Analysis. Then, Trimming process was done, where the selected components materials were change to biocomposite for a more sustainable automotive headrest. The functions with disadvantages or can cause harmful functions were also reduced or eliminated during trimming process. The trimmed function diagram reveals that the biocomposite headrest structure have a main problem that is insufficient holding function. Based on this problem, a Cause-and-Effect Chain Analysis was performed to identify the key disadvantages. This is important to avoid mistake by implementing ineffective solutions, due to wrong root cause identification. The result is the key disadvantages together with proposed countermeasures. The outcome of the study can later be used for future work on contradiction analysis.
