Shop Time

Sorry I’ve been quite for so long. The last three days have been one long continuation of discussion, fabrication, and data gathering. Over the nights we've been debriefing from our village trip. To recap, we did the following:

• Officially sold one grater to Samuel and gained knowledge of more potential customers

• Took Auntie Akosua’s grater for servicing

• Co-designed on a press with our three grater owners

List of tasks for the week at ITTU

Samuel’s grater purchase meant it was now imperative that we have a working version of the new design. On top of that, Auntie Akosua advertised the grater to 2 or 3 more prospective customers, so we’d like to have at least one extra machine to potentially sell. With the constant help of the whole team, Irene and I have been working day in and out at ITTU to complete the new machines. We took a brief break on Tuesday to check out a metal workshop called Obeng Engineering in Suame Magazine with Ben. There we met Nana, the very busy supervisor of the plant, who gave us a tour of the extensive facilities. They had many interesting capabilities that we will consider as we plan to scale up. Otherwise the tech team has remained in the shop.

Business team learns how local fufu producers use their grater

On the other hand, the business team has been all over Kumasi testing assumptions about the market segmentation and business model. Particularly, Julian, Anna, and Jianhan have been visiting chop bars (high volume restaurants) to get an idea about the business and the need for a grater. They have also been investigating the usage of mobile money payments in Ghana and banking process for starting small businesses. There have been some promising leads for opening the market to chop bars. However, the team decided to wait on supplying a grater to a chop bar until we are more confident about the longevity of the design (especially since the grater is untested at this point).

The task of refurbishing Auntie Akosua’s grater also occupied the tech team’s time. When inspecting the machine on Monday, we noticed that her motor sounded worn out, and after further assessment, we decided to modify the whole grater. The changes we made were to stiffen the grater and balanced the head.

The press co-design gave us a wealth of information for the next iteration of the press and also a clearer vision of the women’s values. Early in the week we were hoping to deploy presses during this trip, but the grater quickly has become a fulltime commitment. We plan to take what we’ve got back to Needham and return in January with a press to deploy (possibly earlier if we send the materials to Asante). But for now, we have to get these graters working.

Meeting at Obeng Engineering to introduce the grater 

Julian grinding the chute plunger down to size