Reversible L-Shaped Desk Assembly for Left-Right Reconfiguration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Large commercial organizations face significant costs in maintaining an inventory of extra desks to accommodate changing workforce needs, including asymmetrical designs for left and right-handed users, which requires additional inventory to optimize space layout.
Innovation Solution
A desk design featuring a reversible work platform with oppositely disposed surfaces and a frame assembly with telescoping leg assemblies and adjustable height mechanisms, allowing the platform to be easily reconfigured by flipping and reattaching with bushings and bolts, enabling efficient use of space and reducing inventory needs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If organizations maintain an inventory of extra desks to accommodate changing workforce needs and different user preferences, then adaptability is improved, but inventory costs and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines left-handed and right-handed desk configurations into a single physical desk by making the work surface reversible. The work surface can be detached, flipped 180 degrees, and reattached to switch between configurations, eliminating the need to maintain separate inventory for different user preferences.
Solution Approach 2:
The desk incorporates dynamic reconfigurability through a reversible work surface that can change orientation based on user needs. The work surface is designed with attachment mechanisms that allow it to be easily detached, flipped, and reattached, enabling the desk to adapt to different configurations without requiring multiple static desk variants.
2Ease of operation
If organizations purchase asymmetrical desks for left and right handed users, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity and inventory management complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The desk is designed as a universal piece of furniture that can serve both left-handed and right-handed users through its reversible work surface. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for organizations to purchase and manage separate inventory for different user types, simplifying procurement and inventory management while maintaining ease of operation for all users.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple versions of desks are maintained for different facility layouts and user preferences, then adaptability is improved, but loss of substance through unused inventory increases
Solution Approach 1:
The reversible work surface design allows the organization to discard the concept of maintaining multiple desk inventories and recover resources by using a single versatile desk design. Instead of disposing of or storing unused asymmetrical desks, the organization can simply flip the work surface of existing desks to accommodate different users, eliminating inventory waste.
Data Source
AI summary
A desk having a reversible work platform. In one embodiment, the reversible work platform is attached to a frame assembly with a plurality of bushings and associated bolts, and can be reconfigured from a left-handed configuration to a right-handed configuration by removing the bushings and bolts from above the desk, flipping the reversible work platform, and reinstalling the bushings and bolts from above the desk. In one embodiment, an L-shaped desk is reconfigured by flipping the reversible work platform and rearranging the parts of the frame assembly. Leg assemblies of the frame assembly include height adjustment mechanisms, which are actuated by a hand crank to change the height of the reversible work platform.