Technical University of Denmark students hit the sweet spot in liquorice factory design
There is a buzz of activity behind the large glass windows in no. 119 and no. 123 on Bagsværd Hovedgade on a summer’s day in 2023. A floor plan is spread out on a table in the middle of the large room, which will become an extension to the existing liquorice factory Bagsværd Lakrids in autumn 2023. With the floor plan, five DTU students present their proposal for the factory’s new interior design and layout to Morten Kornbech Larsen, CEO of the liquorice factory.
In 13 weeks, Agnete Terkelsen, Emil Fossdahl Hecht-Nielsen, Emil Lynge Rasmussen, Stefan Perovic, and Amanda Rosgaard, who are all studying for a Master of Science (MSc) in Design and Innovation at DTU, have prepared their proposal for meeting several interior design and layout challenges, including increasing production capacity and improving job satisfaction among the factory’s employees. The liquorice factory is also still to showcase its liquorice production to both visitors and passers-by in the main street.
The current factory is located right next to the new premises—so close, in fact, that free passage between them will be created by simply tearing down a wall, which is, in fact, part of the proposal.
Based on the floor plan, the five students and Morten Kornbech Larsen eagerly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of either having two separate small factories or gathering the entire production in one large factory. On one hand, placing the large pots with the scalding hot liquorice in two mini-factories will allow as many customers and passers-by as possible to gain insight into how liquorice is made in the old-fashioned way.
On the other hand, gathering the production in one large factory would allow the new premises to primarily be used for cutting and packing the liquorice mass, while all the pots will stay in the old premises. The advantage of this solution is that it makes it easy for the employees to distribute their daily tasks, because each part of the production (manufacturing, cutting, packing, etc.) takes place in its own separate area.
However, everyone around the table and the floor plan agrees that the best solution is the one that creates optimal workflows, so that production bottlenecks are avoided without compromising the employees’ job satisfaction.
Actions speak louder than words
The five students have prepared their design and layout proposal during the course User-Involving System Design, which is a fixed part of the BSc programme in Design and Innovation. As part of the course, students must first find and then collaborate with a business on testing new ways of designing systems or—in this case—a factory.
Amanda Rosgaard was already working at Bagsværd Lakrids when she and her fellow students were given the assignment of finding a business, and she also knew that the liquorice factory was planning an extension of its premises. Therefore, she asked Morten Kornbech Larsen if Bagsværd Lakrids was interested in a collaboration, and the answer was yes.
“Our collaboration with Bagsværd Lakrids has given us the opportunity to use the models we’ve learned about during the course in the real world together with a real business, and it has been highly educational,” explains Amanda Rosgaard.
The students’ design and layout proposal has especially been based on what is called ‘contextual interviews’ with Bagsværd Lakrids’ employees. A contextual interview is conducted in the relevant context for the subject-matter of the interview.
“In short, we’ve looked more at what the employees actually do during a working day rather than analysing what they say they do. By using this method, we’ve ensured that our proposal for the design and layout of the new factory matches the employees’ workflows in the current factory where these are efficient and improves them where possible,” explains Agnete Terkelsen.
Time for in-depth analysis
For Morten Kornbech Larsen, the collaboration with the five DTU students offers great benefits: “They challenge my way of looking at things because, unlike me, they approach the workflows in our factory from a completely new perspective, and they also have more time to do a much more detailed analysis than I have.”
Morten Kornbech Larsen is a chemical engineer graduate from DTU and has designed the flow in the current mini-factory. He has given the students feedback on their proposal throughout the processs, so that they have been able to improve and adjust it on an ongoing basis, until they officially presented the proposal in spring 2023 in front of representatives from the Municipality of Gladsaxe and the entire management of Bagsværd Lakrids, among others.
After the official presentation, Morten Kornbech Larsen has chosen to employ the five students for a short term to enable them to further develop their design and layout proposal together with him. The plan is to realize the new proposal during autumn 2023.