Herkules : Monterbart aluminiumankare

In the business of small boats and leisure watercrafts a lot of different anchors are sold varying in function and design. Some are made for specific situations, for example a se anchor or drought, while others are made for all-round use by its versatile design. Bruce- or Claw Anchors are examples of anchors where the patent right of the original innovator has run out, and every company is free to use a similar design under their own name. This of course increases the variety on the market and also pushes the development of new types of anchors. During information gathering is that a lot of anchors have some things in common. They are often permanent structures of steel, require a lot of space and they are often made in one piece.In this situation the company NOA Aluminium has noticed an opportunity for creativity and innovative solutions. Traditionally anchors have been something heavy that boaters lower to the bottom to make the boat stand still. The idea of this project is to make something that rather than with its weight, it uses its shape to stop the boat from drifting. Together with NOA Aluminium AB our ambition has been to methodically apply traditional design and development tools to develop a new type of anchor. An expressed will from the company is that the developed anchor should be made of aluminium and that no permanent joining methods shall be used.The working process expressed in this paper starts off by creating a sense of what the market requires and understanding the potential within this area. The result of this project is an anchor that consists of five parts. These parts are laser cut out of one single sheet of aluminium, and folded together with flanges and grooves, and finally locked to one rigid piece with one standard component. The advantages of this idea are that the cost of production and distribution can be greatly reduced while putting energy into other value increasing activities. Another great advantage of this idea is that the anchor can be stored using minimal space.