Supporting Developing Countries

Supporting Developing Countries

1. Education of the people

   • Classrooms
     • Tables
     • Chairs
       • Combined
         • Chair with Built in Table
       • Made for all ages and sizes
     • Organisation/Making best use of space
       • Cupboards
         • Flatpack/Fold away
       • Shelves
   • Children
     • Teach them to have sustainable living
       • Farming
         • Problem solve to make things easier
           • Ploughing
           • Planting
           • Investments in live stock for the community, or teaching about the use of livestock so they can buy on their own when they get paid for working
       • Water
         • Carry and Store more water
           • Wheels to make it easier to carry
           • Community water storages to allow less trips to the pumps in the center of town
   • All these investments could be made after sales and manufacturing start
     • Community projects could be put in place to help the whole community not just those employed, also classes could be tought on how to develop their farms and such witha small amount of income

2. Rescources on Offer

   • Reusing
     • Pallets
     • Shipping Crates
       • Plywood
       • 2x4's
     • These materials may not be suitable for resale, however could be used for prototyping of new products
   • Shop Bought
     • Plywood
     • MDF can be vineered with any different wood
       • Can be used to simulate hard wood
     • Softwood
     • Hardwood will not fit target price range
   • Finishes
     • Paint to give smooth finish
     • Stain, unlikely as doesnt work well on plywood adn MDF
     • Clear Polyurethane, gives protective layer
     • Danish Oil, can bring out grain, could go nicely with an exposed plywood endgrain

3. Electricity

   • Lights and Appliances
     • LED Lamps
     • Low Power Lights
   • Generation
     • Solar
     • Hydro electric
       • River
       • Self Contained
   • All could be considerations for any facilities built to help with the power situation

4. Research

   • Secondary
     • News articles
     • Researching exisiting products e.g IKEA
       • Need to be sure i dont accidently plagarise their designs after looking at them
     • Sales figures of different types of furniture could be looked into, however could be hard to find this information specifically
   • Primary
     • Interview users of similar products to find out what they like/dont like
     • Interview Client as if they were buying your product
     • Interviewing a resident of Ethiopia to find out needs and the best way i can help without taking advantage
     • Surveys on aspects of the design

5. Ideas

   • Table
     • Asthestics
       • Epoxy Inlay
         • Possible Coaters
       • Vineered MDF top and softwood/plywood frame
       • Painted Frame
       • Triangles for strength and modern look
       • Modern, clean looks is needed to be able to sell well in the UK
     • Acrylic Coasters that attach to the table with magnets
     • Send plans to a developing country so that they make it and we buy it to then sell on in the UK
   • Storage Unit
   • Modular Systems
     • Basic shapes to allow easy reconfiguration
   • Space saving
     • Compact with as many features as possible whil not seeming overdone

6. Environment

   • England
     • Can be humid but not enought to separate vineer
     • Needs to be resisitant to tea stains
     • Needs to fit in both a modern home and an older styled home
     • Less spacious apartments will probably be the ideal setting for the product
     • Needs to fit into modern apartments and blend in through the use of equally cleand and modern construction and finishes
   • Developing country e.g Ethiopia
     • Large open spaces in villages, easy to fins space to build a work space
     • Most likely to setup in villages, as often harder working kids come from their and apprenticeships could be a good way to get a good amount of workers
     • Also staying close to cities could be ideal as most universities are their and that could be a good place to employ new talents after they have their degree
     • Electricity may be unstable so backup systems (batteries etc) and possibly solar panels could be used to off set the frequency of complete power cuts so that the factory isnt a hinderance on the community

7. 6 R's

   • Reuse
     • Flatpack construction could allow the panels to be reused
   • Rethink
     • rethinking modern solutions to modern problems that use less materials and are less wasteful overall
   • Repair
     • using flatpack construction allows the product to be easily repaired, this is helpful as a selling point however most flatpack products are so cheap they will simply be replaced instead of fixed
   • Reduce
     • Trying to minimise waste by teaching new methods of building furniture out of flat stock instead of large blocks of wood, we can help prevent deforestation that will occure if the trees keep being cut down and used in trunk form and carved down to create a chair, this is wasteful and the scraps often are used to burn
   • Recycle
   • Refuse
     • fusing to operate 'Sweatshop' like facilities and giving equal pay mnagable work hours to any residents of developing countries that may be employed

8. Client

   • Richer people in first world countries
     • Have expendable income compared to the people in the developing countries
       • Marketing towards first world countries will allow the most sales and then i can expand facilities and employ more in the developing countyries and invest in local facilities such as schools to help even more
       • Students and first time home buyers could be a good target market as their are a lot of them and it will be easy to conduct primary research