If they hadn’t had the machines then they would never have been able to develop the wedge dowel in the same way. “In here we just play to find solutions,” says Andreas. Henrik says it was the best decision he ever made to let Prototype Engineers Anders Eriksson and Göran Sjöstedt pursue this idea that’s revolutionising flat-pack construction. No brief, no product or business area in mind – just curiosity to see how far an idea could go, and this idea is going far. The wedge dowel, the click function that reduces assembly time for customers dramatically, is one of these big solutions that was not only developed in the Prototype Shop, the idea came from two of the Prototype Engineers. We ask if he can talk about them, he fires back a short “no.” At the moment, they’re sitting on some pretty big solutions. Henrik says it takes a well-trained eye to find anything of value in a picture but in the wrong context it can severely damage the IKEA product development process. When we bring out our camera, one of the Prototype Engineers stops what he’s doing. Playing to find solutionsĮverything here in the Prototype Shop is at the ideas stage. It was up to the design and product development team to decide what kind of sofa they would be developing. Briefs come in all forms here at IKEA, for example with the VALLENTUNA sofa, all they were told was to develop a sofa.

The first thing Andreas does when he gets a brief is to analyse it. And it’s being able to translate these “failed challenges” from one context to another that is so integral to the IKEA product development process. “I will never get into a situation where we get 100% products from what we do, because if we did that we would never challenge ourselves,” says Henrik. IKEA buys the machines, but they can’t buy insight. ”Those that say they know everything, I am a bit cautious of,” says Henrik. They have to have a passion for product development and be curious. Prototype Engineers have a rare combination of abilities knowledge about materials, construction and practical skills. They turn an idea into something you can hold in your hands. There are fifteen Prototype Engineers working in here full-time, twelve men and three women. Nothing is more visible and easy to understand than the product when it’s alive. Seeing a design in 3D, that is an invaluable step in the design process. “Nothing is more visible and easy to understand than the product when it’s alive,” says Henrik. It is one of his lesser-known contributions to IKEA (hard to compete with co-inventing the flat-pack and designing the BILLY bookshelf) and he established it so that he could use the competence of carpenters whilst designing.

It was the first designer at IKEA, Gillis Lundgren, who founded the Prototype Shop in 1956.

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