Belgravium
Atlanta - ruggedised logistics data capture and communications terminals
Background
Belgravium, (now Touchstar), built its lead in mobile computing solutions for logistics and warehousing data management on rugged hand-held data capture and communications terminals.
Atlanta is the third generation of tough handsets by Lucid’s team.
Development objectives included:
Glove operable touchscreen, stylus, and button data inputs.
Radio and wi-fi data communications.
Palm and pistol-grip options.
Vibration, shock cold, and crush resistant.
Desktop and truck cab-mount options.
Discovery
Collaborating with the Belgravium team, Lucid’s designers observed stakeholder interactions with competitor and analogous products. We mapped opportunities for improvements and design constraints.
Design
Focusing on design opportunities for improvement we considered:
Ergonomic balance and ease of interaction over long shifts in challenging environments.
Shock, vibration, crush, condensation, and ingress protection for extreme environments including cold-stores, external and truck-mount use.
Miniaturised electronics with flexible, options to reconfigure specification.
Iterations of models, visuals, and 3D CAD simulations were used to concurrently develop, evaluate, and improve human factors, electronics, and industrial design with user groups and technical testing.
Challenges resolved included usability, assembly, materials, build-tolerance, mould-flow issues inherent in balancing positive user experience and minimisied cost.
Delivery
Providing unambiguous engineering design specifications, manufacturing subcontractors were involved early and throughout the design process.
Results
Usability
We developed a market-leading product that was simple and pleasurable to use.
Brand impact
Following visual cues in the form, colour, and feel of other Belgravium products, a family feel was developed to optimise and improve brand recognition.
Regulatory and safety
Lithium Ion battery safety and wireless comms standards and testing were followed throughout development.
Sustainability
Integrating the potential for multiple, flexible configurations and options to preclude redundancy, extended the life and applications of the Atlanta design.
The whole system is designed for end-of-life disassembly and recycling.
Manufacturability
Working closely with tooling and moulding production partners, in the UK and Far East, parts were designed to optimise low volume manufacturing.