Abstract
The seating system is the largest direct interface to the costumer and is largely influencing the satisfaction of a driver with the car. However, in many cars mediocre seats are mounted and even premium car makers are struggling up to the last minute before the start of production in order to achieve a convincing seating comfort. Several causes for this problem can be observed. The first one is that seating comfort is very often still considered very subjective and that only the driving assessment of experts in the very late stages of the product development process is trusted and sensibly employed. The second major problem is that seating comfort requires a multi-objective evaluation. A seat with good seating comfort has at least to deliver good initial comfort, long-term comfort, side support, egress/ingress comfort and durability. Additionally, each one of these criteria requires many positive characteristics, e. g. a good long-term comfort requires the right pressure distribution, a soft but solid posture stabilisation, freedom for movement and braking etc. A third major problem arises from the fact that some characteristics such as the damping and isolating characteristics are very hard to asses and directly influence the unconscious well-being of the driver and passengers. Finally it is a major problem that the seat is strongly influencing the design and appearance of the car interior. Therefore with each new generation of a car also a new design of the seating system is desired by the product design department. Very often the whole seating comfort development has to be repeated because of product design requirements such as shape changes or changes of important seams.
The key elements to overcome these difficulties are designated measurement methods which allow assessing certain characteristics as objective as possible and a sensible development process for seating comfort. The paper presents such measurement methods together with an assessment system which combines these measurement methods sensibly as well as a proven development process for seating comfort.
Keywords: human factors, seating systems, seating comfort, evaluation