Development & Commercialization of Cotton Stripper Machine – success story of incubating grassroots innovations

1. Development & Commercialization of Cotton Stripper Machine – success story of incubating grassroots innovations

2. Genesis of Innovation In the dry cotton growing tracts of Gujarat and other parts of the coutry, there are some varieties of cotton (Kalyan – V 797, G-13 etc.) where the lint is tightly attached to the inner side of the shell. This lint has to be stripped from the shell before ginning. This is a laborious process, manually carried out usually by women and children labour. Shri Mansukhbhai Patel, Studied up to 7th standard, An Electrician in Textile mill by profession & farmer from Gujarat solved the problem. He was scouted by a student of Gram Vidhyapith in the year 1997.

3. INNOVATION As an answer to this problem, Mansukhbhai developed a machine which mechanically strip the cotton lint from the shell in a faster & efficient manner and leave it ready for ginning. • It totally replaces the manual method of separating cotton from the harvested cotton shells. • Social relevance - reduces drudgery of women and child labour • Wider commercial application

4. Selection criteria: • A unique solution to a tedious, manual process • Social relevance-reduces drudgery of women and child labour • Increasing efficiency & Quality of output by eliminating staple cutting • Wider socio-commercial application Performance Features:

5. Comparison with conventional methods

6. Product Development - 1991 – 2000 First few prototypes developed by innovator himself. He mobilized financial support by his own from friends and family. GIAN mobilized technical support from National Design Institute & Indian Institute of Technologyand financial support from TePP Scheme of DSIR, Government of India . Innovator has developed seven different models in eight years to reach to a level of commercial product.

7. First Conceptual model ( 1991 )

8. First Prototype:( 1992) The machine required just three workers and processed 100-160 Kg of cotton per hour. Innovator exhibited this model among the villagers. Mansukhbhai himself was not satisfied with this model, still the design was largely appreciated by those witnessing the exhibition. First Demonstration in village Roller with fillet Spike Roller

9. Shortcomings identified in 1st prototype: • Along with cotton, small pebbles were also infused in the system through hopper which caused system failure and shorten the life wire meshing • Lifetime of the wire meshing (which was about 4000 kg) on the wheel was very less due to the scrubbing by the wooden scrubber. By the end of the exhibition, which lasted for 3 days the wire meshing was completely straightened out. • Cotton dust reduced the life time of bearings used. • Quality of cotton was not that good. As the balls was crushed it broke the seed in to fine particles which stuck with the cotton and was impossible to separate.

10. Concept model 2 ( 1993)

11. Prototype 2 A fiend who was manager in local cooperative financed innovator Rs 150,000/- ( USD 3750/-) as a loan and innovator further worked for a year on removing the shortcomings of his first model. He completed his next model before the start of next season. New components Introduced • Net • Aluminum conveyor • Added super cleaner • rollers • Wheels

12. Shortcomings identified in Model 2 : • The crushed shell particles still stuck to the cotton result into wastage of cotton and it also reduced its quality. • Problem of motor failure persisted. • Shells were falling under the machine and manual labour was required to collect the shells from bottom of the machine. This was very risky, as huge rollers were rotating at quite a high speed just above his head. In this model the life time of wire mesh was increased to 20,000 Kg. It was a commercially viable model. In fact around 15 models were sold. Unfortunately though problems developed in the machines and they were returned back. Innovator returned the money of the buyers. He suffered grave financial losses.

13. Concept Model : 3 ( 1994)

14. Spiked shaft introduced in model in model -3 Two shaft were used in this model. All around the radius of the shaft spikes are protruding out. With the help of the spiked shaft, the balls was opened up to access the cotton instead of crushing it. This increased the quality of cotton to a great extent. In addition to breaking up balls shells this shaft also transported the seeds from the feeding roller to the super cleaning rollers. The super cleaners were used to transport the balls to the wire meshed roller. This does the primitive cleaning of the balls. This model was developed during off season and it was not introduced to the market. A modified version of this model was developed for the season in the month of October, 1995.

15. Concept Model : 4 ( 1995) In this model 4, two large rollers of different RPM with wire mesh were used . Introduction of these two wire meshed wheels , the life of these wheel were further increased upto about 30,000 kg of processing. Innovator used to provide these machines to cotton processing plants on rent and run them under his own supervision and observation. This way he was able to accurately monitor the performance of machines.

16. Feedback of Prof. Munsi (1997), IDC, IIT Mumbai • Drum Alignment : The three rolls supported by the two the sheet plate on the two ends of the rolls at an angle, there are chances of misalignment of the two sheet plate from the base point from where they are supported to the structure. • Hopper :- The hopper get the clog up at the bottom an therefore to eliminate the problem a spiked shaft parallel to the drum was suggested to be incorporated. • Waste :- A provision was made to collect the cotton shell from the bottom and to dispose it on the other side, so that the crushed shell do not effect the quality of the cotton and also the risk associated with the manual picking of the shell is eliminated.

17. Concept model & Prototype 5 ( 1998 ) As shown fig, one more brushing wheel and one more small roller with fillet was used corresponding to the second large roller with wire meshing introduced in model 4. Around 15 machines of this model were sold. The performance of these machines was much better than previous machines. Still there were some shortcomings in the model.

18. Concept Model : 6 (2000) – Mr. Alexander, a German student from National Institute of Design has provided inputs and TePP (DSIR) provided financial support A very detailed and comprehensive market and feasibility study was carried out for the machine. The study also included development of Project Management plan for the innovator for his anticipated shift into commercial production.

19. Photograph of model 6 (2000)

20. Advantages of Model 6 : • Efficiency of the machine has increased due to addition • of the new roller as recycling of the shells is avoided. • The suction mechanism has also solved one major • problem of recurring expense of lycryl mesh. • Introduction of worm wheels has eliminated the • problem of collection of shells drop on one side of the • machine, where they could be easily collected. • Suction mechanism has also eliminated labor requirement for pouring the cotton into the hopper without any additional cost (It has replaced hopper, shaft and spiked shafts).

21. Model 7 – Final Commercial Model named as Millennium Model (2001) The machine contains two 5HP motors one of which rotates the Blower and the spike shaft and other rotates three big rollers. There is also another 2HP motor, which is used to run smaller brush rollers. In this model , innovator has offered full guarantee for one season to the customers. This confidence has been gained over a decade of indigenous R&D on the prototype.

22. Stage wise development………….

23. Commercial model – ready for dispatch

24. IPR Protection: India patent awarded on Feb 6 , 2006 ,No: 198755 US patent Awarded on April 8, 2003. US 6, 543, 091B2 Eight people have copied this innovation & infringed the patent but none of them succeed in business. Innovator has continuously improved the technology and beat the market by winning confident of the customers.

25. Business Development • Innovator himself become Entrepreneur – Established Chetak • Agro Industries ( October 2000 • Initial venture fund has been provided by SRISTI (Oct 2001) • GIAN has arranged working capital through commercial banks • Market research & business plan prepared by GIAN ( 2000) • About 400 machines have been sold in last five years. • Today he is a owner of one big and small five companies. Total turnover of group companies is around 500,000 USD (2 crore INR) • Pioneer in setting up Innovators’ fund for innovator’s of western region of India and made open offer to the other innovators to use his workshops free of charge. Today his industries is like a regional incubator for local innovators.

26. Establishment of commercial venture – Chetak Agro industries

27. Recognition & Reward: 1st Award by National Innovation Foundation Award in the year Feb 2002 Best Technology Award for the year 2003 by National Research Development Corporation, Govt. of India in the year June 2004. Honored by SRISTI including him in the Governing body Recognition by Community

28. 1997 - From Scrap to ……. 2007 - Solid Ampire……. THANKS