Sandra Jarauta is a student in the Master's Programme in Industrial Design at Jönköping University. Now in her last semester, she is working on her degree project, which is about improving and simplifying forest machine operators' everyday lives.

The task is to design a new product whose purpose is to improve how forest machine operators carry their personal items between home and the machine every day.

The idea came from a group work carried out in collaboration with forest machine manufacturer Terri last semester.

"In one of our surveys, we concluded that many drivers feel that an ordinary bag or backpack in the cab takes up a lot of space and is unwieldy. All forest machine operators have to carry things with them every day, such as food, drink and tools. A regular backpack has no natural place in the cab. If you put it behind the chair, it can be difficult to reach, if it is on the dashboard it will fall down, if it is on the floor it can get wet or dirty. There is a problem to solve," says Sandra.

Great interest among drivers
The collaboration with Terri also continues through her degree project. She has access to a forest machine cab that Terri has placed at the school and also receives support and technical help from a contact person from the company.

In a survey that Sandra marketed to forest machine operators on social media, she received many valuable answers and comments.

"There are many more people than I thought who have responded, very funny! I haven't had time to analyze the answers yet, but I have seen that there is really a need for a new product. The survey responses provide valuable knowledge about what the industry is looking for and I get a lot of new ideas," she says.

She doesn't really want to think too much about what a final product could look like – she doesn't want to lock herself into a specific direction.

"But I imagine some kind of ergonomic backpack to carry from home to the machine and that has a fixed place in the cab where it can stand on its own," says Sandra.

The product will be presented partly as a prototype, partly as computer animations, images and so on. The degree project will be completed by the end of May.