research into food carts
 

hi, im a student at Staffordshire University studying Product Design. For my final year project, I want to redesign the food delivery system on airplanes.
I was wondering if anyone would help me out by answering a few quick questions, or just posting the main problems you have with the carts?

What are the main problems associated with the airplane carts?

How much time (on average) does it take to load up the carts and distribute food/drink down the plane?

What improvements would you like to see to the design of the carts?


Thankyou so much for helping me out with this :)



Heather xxxxxx

This subject comes up quite frequently and a lot of people seem to want to redesign them. Do a quick search and take a look at the other threads and they may answer your questions already :ok:

If you're serious about this project you need to consider the views from various groups....In no particular order:-

1) The customer (i.e the passenger)
2) The service provider (i.e. the airline)
3) The airline's employees (e.g. the cabin crew)
4) The airline's suppliers (e.g. caterers)
5) The safety regulators (e.g. CAA/FAA)

Good luck!

After a lot of use the wheels can be a problem making it hard to move.

The doors can also be a problem when the 'locking mechanism' malfunctions meaning doors keep flying open.

The service tops often don't fit properly as these are part of aircraft equipment and do not get removed with the trolley and therefore replaced or repaired regularaly.

Many inovations have been tried over the years such as heated trollies to keep the food at serving temperature but have not always been sucessful.

Weight is a consideration firstly for manouverability by all cabin crew and catering/loading staff. Also for overall aircraft weight for fuel purposes, weight costs money!

I have seen bar trollies with built in cash draws and sales computers however purchase cost of these is a consideration for the airline along with serviceability issues

Setting up a trolley for service is pretty quick probably less than 10 minutes for bar service. Loading up for main meal service is more time consuming as you are dealing with ovens and hot inserts.

Hope this is of help and good luck:ok:

The poor old catering cart gets a right bashing in the line of duty. From the obvious treatment in the air, bashing seats, galley corners and crew legs many times a day.

It gets far worse in the catering co. it has to withstand hot and cold washes, pushed into other trolleys, walls etc then loaded onto a truck often with heavy boxes or ovens on top whilst they are loaded with food, booze or dry stores.

Because they are quite expensive items airlines do not have excess stock and catering companies often have few spares to replace any damaged trolleys.

Repairing the wheels and brakes is actually normally a very simple task, door locks can sometimes be a bit harder to fix.

The problem might not be rethinking new carts but getting the airline to spend money when what they have does the job.

H