Bikers Want Customized Motorcycle Seats, Custom Fit Study Finds

Motorcyclists are in favor of customizing their motorcycle seats according to their body geometry. A survey on customization of motorcycle seats carried out as part of the European funded project Custom-Fit, found that 81% of the survey respondents support the idea of a customized seat.

The Custom-Fit project is investigating new techniques for customizing a product based on Rapid Manufacturing (RM). The project is supported with almost 10 millions Euro by the European Community and is one of the largest projects in the area of customization (Disclosure: I am a member of the project’s scientific advisory board).

As explained in the previous posting, RM allows parts to be manufactured directly and automatically using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model. The new technique will enable consumers to buy products that are built to the exact requirements of the consumers. A motorcycle customized according to body geometry is one of the products which the project is investigating. Other possible applications of the new technique include prosthetic sockets, helmets, mandible implants and knee implants.

The survey was recently carried out by Loughborough University in UK, who is a partner in the project, and received 3200 responses from motorcyclists worldwide. In the survey, majority of the respondents owned a motorcycle and do not share their motorcycle with another person. Although only half of the respondents said that they had experience of discomfort from their motorcycle seats, but majority felt the discomfort during long distance travelling. In addition, more than half of the respondents are willing to pay a premium for the customized seat and many were willing to wait longer.

Professor Richard Hague, Head of the Rapid Manufacturing Research Group in Loughborough University, said: “These initial results show that there is wide support for customised goods – even if initially they are more expensive and take longer to produce.” (Note: Richard Hague chairs the Rapid Manufacturing Track at the MCPC 2007 conference!)

The next phase in the project will be to investigate the technical practicality of designing a motorcycle seat based on the scan data of the consumer’s body profile. Research on how to obtain the body geometry has already started and the project is is now working on defining a “comfort map”, which is a combination of the pressure map and the discomfort zones.

This result is used to identify the area on the seat which needs to be redesigned and the new seats will be testes on motorcycles. At the same time, the management issues involved in providing a customization service for motorcycle seats have also been studied. The project has identified the possible ways to offer the service to the consumers and is studying the supply chain implications of introducing such a service.

Context:

- More results from the Custom Fit project will be presented in several talks on the MCPC 2007 @ MIT !

- Custom-Fit is an industry led project to investigate the possibility of moving towards knowledge based manufacturing and customized production through integration of knowledge in Rapid Manufacturing, Information Technology and Material Science. Funded under the Sixth Framework Program, the project involves 33 partners from around Europe. The aim is to create a fully integrated system for the design, production and supply of individualized products. It has targeted product for implementing the new technology, including motorcycle seats, helmets, implants and prosthesis. Project homepage: http://www.custom-fit.org/