Products under development go through rapid prototyping in the pattern shop to provide a sense of what they will actually look like in the flesh—or at least in plastic. On a recent visit, one of the four 3-D printers was outputting a toilet brush. Apparently this is one of the more normal items. “We have a lot of strange things,” says Henrik Holmberg, who manages the department. “That is very good that we can do it in our own shop rather than spreading the crazy ideas externally.” One of the oddest things he’s ever worked on was a lamp made from the same material as egg cartons. “I thought that was very crazy,” he says, “but we proved the technique was possible.”
If air is the enemy in shipping, it is the ally in design. “The more air in our products, the better,” says Engman, who started working at Ikea when he was a teenager, pushing trolleys. (His dad was an Ikea product developer and came up with the idea for the Klippan, a round, informal sofa, after seeing how his kids wore out the furniture.) In the design center, Engman points out a table under development that consists of two trays cobbled together. Its hollow center means the use of fewer materials. Its legs even attach without screws—part of a general move at Ikea to try to simplify assembly. Fittings can constitute about a third of a product’s cost and are also a hassle for customers.