Pumped up, by design

From the rustic back shelves of stores to fancy counters in air-conditioned trade fairs, the domestic hand pump has travelled a long way – thanks to a design intervention.

When the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises announced a Design Clinic Scheme last year, Coimbatore-based Ventura Pumps, makers of hand pumps, jumped at the idea. It had been wanting to redesign its hand pumps for some time. Under the scheme, the Government would subsidise the design input cost of a company by 60 per cent. Partnering the Ministry in the programme were the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Design (NID) and a handful of design firms. The total size of the scheme, launched to create awareness among MSMEs about the importance of design as well as bring improvements in their products through direct interventions, evaluation, analysis and improvement is Rs 73.5 crore. Ventura was one of the beneficiaries of the scheme. From pump makers to medical equipment manufacturers, small and medium enterprises got their products redesigned. At a recent exhibition in Delhi, organised by NID, 12 products that have profited from the intervention were showcased, and their stories shared.

All pumped up

For Ventura Pumps, the scheme — set up under the national manufacturing competitiveness programme of the Ministry — was like a godsend, as it did not have the financial wherewithal to do the design improvements it had been seeking. Ventura has an annual turnover of Rs 25 lakh and produces 500 pumps per day.

Mr K.K. Rajan, its Managing Director, got in touch with the Bangalore-based design firm Icarus Design, to give a new look to its hand pumps.

Mr Sunil Sudhakaran, Founder of Icarus and his team, researched the hand pump sector which has close to 100 established players and several unorganised ones. They found that every pump looked the same. Most were attached with aluminium extrusions and had hardly any aesthetic value.

Icarus came up with bold, bright and colourful looking pumps designed in plastic. The new design increased the price of the product by Rs 200 (from Rs 2,500 to Rs 2,700). However, Mr Rajan is optimistic that the price will come down, as volumes increase. “This is bound to happen once the industrial production starts,” he says.

Widening Scope

Now, Mr Rajan is waiting for some capital infusion. He needs Rs 15-20 lakh for the tooling stage. “I hope the Ministry will come up with another scheme to help us do so,” he said.

Another medium scale enterprise Zandigg TQM Solutions in Bangalore, innovated an ENT multiscope in collaboration with Icarus.

“This device can be inserted into the ear, nose and throat and has a camera and light. It used to be so expensive that only big hospitals could afford it. The ENT from Zandigg came to us with a prototype to make it more ergonomic and immediately patented it. It is much more affordable now,” said Mr Sudhakaran.

So far, the MSME Ministry has released Rs 5.7 crore of the Rs 49.08 crore, said Mr Pradyumna Vyas, Director NID. Till date, NID has submitted 80 designs to the Ministry, of which, 33 have been approved. Mr Vyas has set an ambitious target of exhibiting 100 designs in next year's clinic. It is expected to assist industrial clusters to open a channel for design information inflow for creative, innovative and futuristic approach towards the product, process, operations, manufacturing and business design, said Mr Vyas.

Mr Sudhakaran and his team of 35 at Icarus, which provides solutions to corporates such as Tata and United Breweries Group, are keen to offer design inputs to MSMEs and start ups. But very often small enterprises cannot afford to spend for designing purpose. Moreover, awareness about design is low in the Indian product-scape.

“MSME has been a sector that has traditionally never looked at design as an input to increase product value. But that is going to change,” said Mr Uday Kumar Varma, Secretary, MSME Ministry. He said the sector contributes about 45 per cent of India's total manufactured output and close to 40 per cent of the exports. About 60 million persons are employed in it in 26 million enterprises. The sector contributes eight per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product.