Rubber Tap

Final Report and Business Plan

E 105: Product Design for the Developing World Prof. Ken Pickar Prof. Jason Issac

Vinay Mathew John Michelle Jiang

December 7, 2010

Team Rubber Tap (Team 3) Dilip Mathew Kiefer Aguilar Ryan Newton Sandeep Kumar

Tyler Hannasch

Team Rubber Tap: Final Report and Business Plan

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Table of Contents

Section Page Rubber Tapping Process ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Market Pain ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 Target Markets …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4‐8 Primary Market Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………................ 5‐8 Secondary Market Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………............ 8

Customers and Distribution Channels ……………………………………………………………………………………...... 8 Competition ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9 Our Product ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9‐11 Design Constraints………………………………………………………………………………………......................... 9 Product Design………………………………………………………………………………………............................... 9‐11

Implementation Strategy ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12‐19 Business Goals…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 12 Four Phase Approach………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 12‐13

Cost and Revenue Projections……………………………………………………………………………………………. 13‐18 Funding Plan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18‐19

Stakeholders ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19 Ethical Concerns ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19 Team Chemistry ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20

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4

Market Pain

The rubber industry in India is faced with a shortage of skilled rubber tapping labor as the result

of four phenomena1,2:

64% of rubber tappers are at least 40 years old and most will retire by 2020.

Rubber tapping is a blue collar job that few young people want to do. In fact, only 6% of

rubber tappers are less than 30 years old.

Most rubber plantation owners are not satisfied with the skill of their labor as older rubber

tappers egoistically refuse to adopt modern methods of rubber tapping.

The natural rubber industry is growing at about 4% per year and more rubber tappers are

needed to keep up with the booming demand from China and India.

Our team has developed a rubber tapping tool that addresses this shortage of skilled rubber

tapping labor in the following ways: (1) it allows unskilled laborers and women to tap rubber trees; (2) it

reduces the effort required to tap rubber trees; and (3) it increases worker productivity. Our tool also

increases tree lifetime by decreasing the risk of tree damage. While our tool may not change the

perception that rubber tapping is a blue collar job, it reduces barriers that turn away potential rubber

tappers.

Target Markets

Our primary target market is the Indian rubber tapping industry (particularly the industry in

Kerala, which produces 92% of India’s natural rubber3). Our secondary target market is other tropical

regions that have substantial rubber tapping industries, including Southeast Asia (in particular Indonesia,

Thailand, and Malaysia), South America (especially Brazil), and Africa (in particular, Liberia, Nigeria, and

the Ivory Coast).

1 Socio‐economic Profile of Rubber Tappers in the Small Holding Sector, T. V. Ushadevi and V. N. Jayachandran, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development, 2001. 2 International Rubber Study Group, Sept. 2010. 3 http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/Commodities‐Buzz‐Rubber‐Board‐To‐Create‐Pool‐Of‐Rubber‐Tappers/2983350524


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Primary Market Analysis

Market Hypotheses

Our team developed the following market hypotheses as a focus for our market research:

(1) Unskilled workers (including women) want to work on rubber plantations but cannot without

extensive training because they could kill a rubber tree with too deep a cut.

(2) Skilled workers and women who want to work on rubber plantations want tools that require less

strength and endurance to use.

(3) Rubber plantations need more rubber tappers and more efficient tools.

(4) Rubber plantation management and their workers are willing to adopt a new tool.

(5) Rubber plantation management buys and maintains tools for their workers.

(6) Most or all rubber tapping in Kerala is done on plantations.

Our market research results at least partially validated all of our market hypotheses, as shown in

Table 1.

Table 1: Market Hypothesis Validation

Hypothesis Market Research Result

(1)

Partially verified

Older unskilled workers want to work on rubber plantations but cannot without extensive training because too deep a cut can slow future tapping. Too deep a cut does not typically kill a tree; it just reduces productivity. Young people do not want to work as rubber tappers because it is a blue collar job.

Women do not want to work on rubber plantations because the work is too hard and they play more traditional roles in the household. A few women in dire circumstances do choose to become rubber tappers. 4% of rubber tappers are women. Plantation management, however, want women to work as rubber tappers because their wages are lower and they typically have better skills.4

(2)

Partially verified

Prospective unskilled workers also want tools that require less strength and endurance to use. While skilled workers want this as well, it is not a major concern.

(3) Verified

(4)

Verified beyond expectation

Plantation management is willing to buy a superior tool at 50% greater price (or more) than the current tool.

(5) Verified

(6) Verified

4 Socio‐economic Profile of Rubber Tappers in the Small Holding Sector, T. V. Ushadevi and V. N. Jayachandran, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development, 2001.


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Important Numbers and Additional Results

Table 2 below summarizes some important market information.

Table 2: Market data

Overall Market in India

Rubber production in India5 1.1 billion kg latex/year $ 4.8 billion/year

Rubber industry growth6 ~6.7% per year through 2011 3‐4% per year after that

Current number of rubber tappers7 580,000 workers

Number of acres of rubber trees8 1.72 million acres

India’s world market share6 10.7% of 10.3 billion kg/year

Plantation Information

Fraction of rubber tapping farmland in Kerala9 92%

Typical plantation size9 A few acres, but varies (and can be much larger)

Number of trees per acre9 180 trees/acre

Annual yield of raw latex per acre10 630 kg latex/year $ 2700/year

Sale price of raw latex6 Rs. 180/kg ($4.02/kg)

Skilled Worker Information

Fraction of rubber tappers who are women9 4%

Age distribution of rubber tappers9 Less than 30 years old: 6% 30‐40 years old: 30% More than 40 years old: 64%

Number of trees tapped per worker per day9 270 trees/worker/day

Area each worker taps (twice the area a worker taps each day)9

3 acres

Time spent per day tapping trees9 3 hours/day

Annual yield of raw latex per worker11 1900 kg latex/year $ 8100/year

Skilled worker wage11 75‐150 paise/tree tapped (100 paise = 1 rupee) (1.68 – 3.55 cents/tree)

5 http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/05/20/bus02.asp 6 International Rubber Study Group, Sept. 2010. 7 Calculated value 8 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/05/03/stories/2010050350961400.htm 9 Socio‐economic Profile of Rubber Tappers in the Small Holding Sector, T. V. Ushadevi and V. N. Jayachandran, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development, 2001. 10 http://www.unctad.org/infocomm/anglais/rubber/crop.htm 11 Personal interviews with rubber plantation management


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Additional results12:

Rubber tapping tool purchase and maintenance is not a major cost for plantation management.

The Rubber Board Office of India is a major tool supplier to plantation management and gives

two week classes on rubber tapping to unskilled workers, though mastering the skill with the

current gouge takes 1‐2 years.

Rubber production peaks from August to December, but continues year round.

Market Specifications

From our market research, we have derived market specifications for our improved rubber

tapping tool:

Cost: Plantation management will buy the tool at 50% above the current tool price if it is safer

and allows workers to be more productive.

Features/Reliability: Our tool must increase employer profitability by either increasing

productivity or by lowering labor costs in allowing unskilled labor to tap.

Ease of use: Ease of use can improve productivity by reducing fatigue. While it may not change

the blue collar perception of rubber tapping, ease of use will reduce the number of potential

laborers, including women, who chose not to work as rubber tappers because it is hard work.

Durability: Our tool must last 5 years.

Maintenance: Our tool must be maintained with only basic sharpening tools, with occasional

blacksmith attention.

Surprises

Our team’s attention was drawn to a few surprises in our market research12:

Rubber plantation management are willing to buy a superior tool at 50% greater price than the

current gouge tool. Indeed, the “Anikkadankathi” tool is more than double the price of the

traditional gouge.

Deep cuts will not typically kill a rubber tree. They just slow down the tapping process for future

cuts.

Women are preferred for labor, since their wages are less and since they have more skill, even

though they tap more slowly than men.

12 Personal interviews with rubber plantation management


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The presence of the Rubber Board Office as a distribution channel simplifies our sales strategy

and offers both legitimacy for our improved tool and a potential means of training unskilled

workers with our new tool.

Conclusion for Primary Market Analysis: Problem Statement Primary: In India today, rubber tapping plantations are facing a labor shortage. Our goal is to address

this shortage by developing a tool which allows unskilled workers and women to work as rubber

tappers.

Secondary: Our market research has also indicated that (1) plantation owners would like a tool which

increases worker productivity and reduces risk of tree damage and (2) workers and prospective workers

are interested in a tool which requires less effort to use.

Secondary Market Analysis

Our team has not performed in depth market research outside of India. While we know that

rubber plantation owners in our secondary market are also faced with labor shortages, we do not know

the reasons for that shortage to determine whether our tool can address that market pain. We also

know that the rubber tapping process is the same around the world. Since our rubber tapping tool is

superior to the traditional gouge tool, we believe that our tool will be demanded in our secondary

markets, especially if it is well adopted and its effectiveness is well proven in India. Since India has only

10.7% of the world market share of natural rubber production, there is plenty of room for our business

to grow beyond our primary market.

Customers and Distribution Channels

Our end customers are plantation managers, who buy rubber tapping tools for their laborers

(our end users). Plantation managers typically buy their tools from the Rubber Board Office (RBO) of

India, making the RBO a key distribution channel for our tool and an important stakeholder in our

business. Our business model for selling our rubber tapping tool will therefore be a combination of a

direct sales (to rubber plantation owners) model and a “middleman” (the RBO) sales model. The RBO is

not a true middleman as it does not directly buy our tools to re‐sell them; rather, it simply allows us to

sell tools at its locations, free of charge or commission13.

13 Personal interview with Rubber Board Office of India


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Competition

Our market research revealed two competitors: the traditional gouge rubber tapping tool that

requires skilled labor to operate and a newer “Anikkadankathi” tool, which has an adjustable blade to

vary the depth of cut. The newer tool’s blade must be adjusted for every tree, so tapping one tree with

this tool takes as long as it take to tap three or four trees with the traditional gouge. Our competitors

claim that the “Anikkadankathi” tool can extend a rubber tree’s life from 25 years to 50‐60 years. We

don’t believe there is much demand for a tool that extends a rubber tree’s life because in general people

do not invest in a new tool to get a return 25 years later. The very presence of a competitor is good,

however, as it indicates a market need for a tool superior to the traditional gouge. The traditional gouge

tool is priced at Rs. 450 ($10.06), and the “Anikkadankathi” tool is priced at Rs. 1000 ($22.36).

Our Product Our rubber tapping tool is affordable, maintainable, and enables unskilled laborers and women

to work as rubber tappers.

Design Constraints

Our team’s market specifications and business goals set the following design constraints:

Our tool must lower employer labor costs by either increasing productivity or allowing unskilled labor to

tap, while enabling a worker to tap enough trees to make a sufficient salary.

Our tool must last at least 5 years.

Our tool must be able to be maintained locally with only basic sharpening tools, with occasional

blacksmith attention.

Our tool must be able to be repaired with local tools and parts.

Our tool must be cheap to produce and distribute.

Our tool must be intuitive to use so that an unskilled worker can begin tapping trees with minimal

instruction (at the very most, two weeks of instruction, since the RBO offers a two week training class).

Product Design

Figure 2 on the next page is an Illustrative drawing of our prototype giving both a side and top

view. The core of the tool is made of wood, however in order to protect it against wear from the tree it

is plated with an aluminum siding. The blade is made from stainless steel. We will include the current

tool prototype with this report in order to allow for a better understanding of its design.

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Table 3: Product features and design

Area in which we will outperform the competition

Why this area is important to the customer

How, mechanically, our tool will accomplish this feat

Faster to learn to use

Plantation owners have reported that they are facing a skilled labor shortage. The ability to use unskilled labor will also decrease labor costs and allow Indian plantations to be more globally competitive.

We are constraining the cut both vertically and horizontally to make it easy to make the cut. After a few iterations to perfect the shape, the tool should only need to be placed on and pulled along the cut.

Able to be used by women

Women are currently not employed in the tapping industry in large numbers. Accordingly, there is an opportunity to bring them into the industry to solve the labor shortage.

Our belief is that women are deterred from becoming tappers because of the amount of physical strength required. Since our tool takes a minimum sized cut it takes less strength to use and thus alleviates the issue.

Decreased effort to use

This will win worker support for our product and will also increase productivity by alleviating performance losses caused by fatigue.

The wood planner is designed to take a specific sized cut. We will calibrate it to take the minimum needed cut and combine that with and ergonomic design to reduce tapping effort.

Increased safety to tree

Cutting the tree will cause problems tapping the tree in the future or in extreme cases kill the tree.

By bracing the planer against the tree, our tool makes it virtually impossible for the blade to cut the cambium layer of the tree.

Increased tapping speed

Increased tapping speeds allow for a single worker to tap more trees in day, both reducing the labor shortage problem and creating extra value which can be split between the worker and the plantation.

Our tool will make one smooth cut in which the planer is slid along the cut. This is possible because of the decreased strength required, allowing for a faster cut than the impact method currently used.

Increased tree lifetime It reduces the costly process of needing to plant new trees.

By taking smaller cuts. the planer allows more cuts per inch of tree cut away.

Increased latex yields It Improves revenue per cut.

The depth of the cut can be made more aggressively since there is no chance of the planer cutting further into the tree.


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Implementation Strategy

Business Goals

Our team aims to create a business around our improved rubber tapping tool design with the

following goals:

(1) Producing and distributing the tool cheaply

(2) Enabling customers to maintain the tool

(3) Providing a robust and repairable tool

(4) Providing a tool with a lifetime of at least 5 years

(5) Marketing and selling the tool to plantation management

(6) Making a profit in the primary target market

(7) Expanding to the secondary target markets

Four Phase Approach

Our team’s implementation plan for the development of our rubber tapping tool up to full

production has four phases:

Phase I: Prototype Development. In this phase, we iterate our prototype design by

manufacturing it ourselves in the U.S. and sending it to India for testing in the field. We will

iterate until our tool satisfies all of our market constraints and design constrains, 80% of skilled

rubber tappers testing the tool do not suggest any improvements, and the rubber tappers that

do suggest improvements do not suggest any major changes to the tool (with the possible

exception of an “outlier” who may always suggest a major change).

Phase II: Market Proof of Concept. In this phase, our team will manufacture 50 tools (of the final

prototype from Phase I) ourselves in the U.S., ship them to India, and sell them. In this phase,

we will build connections with distributors, gain familiarity with the sales cycle and the cultural

norms of selling tools, and prove that there is a market for our tool.

Phase III: Large‐scale Manufacture Contracted Out. In this phase, our team will contract out

production of our tool to local Indian factories. We aim to produce at least 10,000 tools to

further prove the market exists, to nail down our sales and distribution process, to widely

market the tool, and to gain familiarity with manufacturing our tool in India.


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Phase IV: Full‐scale In‐house Manufacture. In this final phase, our team will build our own

factory in India to ramp up production of our tool final scales, which we currently estimate to be

60,000 per year.

Cost and Revenue Projections

In Table 4, we have estimated the cost to manufacture our tool at full production (Phase IV)

scales. This figure is based on our current prototype design, so as a precaution we add 50% more

manufacturing cost to this estimate considering that our final prototype might be more expensive. We

will use the total manufacturing cost of one tool at full production as a starting point to estimate

manufacturing costs in Phase III.

Table 4: Materials and labor cost estimate of rubber tapping tool production.

Item Number required Total cost

Materials

1/8 in. steel sheet 34.5 sq. in. Rs. 32.70

1/4 in. wood 28.0 sq. in. Rs. 1.00

#8 Nuts/bolts 2/2 Rs. 5.00

Screws 2 Rs. 2.50

Handle 1 Rs. 21.00

Labor

Man hours 20 minutes Rs. 6.50

Total cost of one rubber tapping tool (current prototype) Rs. 68.70 ($ 1.65)

Final prototype estimated cost (+50%) Rs. 103 ($ 2.50)

Phase I

In this phase, we estimate that we will iterate our prototype 10 times over three months. Since

our team is the labor for this phase (and we are doing it for free), there are no labor costs. We are also

developing the prototypes at the Caltech Mechanical Engineering Shop, so there are no factory or

overhead costs. Table 5 on the next page summarizes our costs for this phase.


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Table 5: Phase I costs

Item Cost

Per iteration

Prototype materials $ 15

Shipping of prototype to India $ 60

Per iteration total $ 75

Number of iterations = 10

Total Phase I cost $ 750

There are no revenues in this phase. Phase II

In this phase, our team will build 50 tools of the final Phase I prototype in the U.S., again for free

and in the Caltech shop. The India side of our team will perform the sales and make arrangements with

distributors for Phase III (at such a small scale in Phase II, our distributors will not actually do anything in

this phase). Our team will sell tools directly to plantations. Table 6 summarizes our costs and revenues

for this phase. Note that materials costs per tool have gone down by 40% because we are making 50 of

the same tool and will be able to buy larger scales of materials.

Table 6: Phase II costs and revenues

Item Quantity Total cost

Costs

Materials for tool production 50 tools $ 450

Shipping tools to India 1 shipment $ 400

Total Phase II costs $ 850

Revenues

Sale of tools (@ Rs. 1000, our competitor’s price)

50 tools Rs. 50,000 ($ 1,200)

Phase II profit + $ 350

Building 50 tools will take one month, and shipping those tools to India and selling them will

take another month. Our team will use this phase to price our tool. We will start with our competitor’s

price for their rubber tapping tool and increase the price to see what plantation owners will pay for our

tool. To be conservative with our revenues in Table 6, we have simply assumed our competitor’s price.


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Phase III For this phase, we have assumed a cost‐of‐manufacture of 50% greater than that estimate in

Table 4 for full‐scale production since the scale of manufacture will be lower in Phase III. We have also

estimated that the cost of contracting the factory work out to another factory in India will incur a

commission charge of 33% of the cost to manufacture, but additional research is necessary to pin down

this number (and that research will need to be done after we have chosen a final prototype design so

that we can get a quote).

Our distribution channel will be the Rubber Board Office, which sells other rubber tapping tools.

As a government organization that aims to promote the industry (for example, by giving free two week

training classes to unskilled rubber tappers), they will not charge us a commission for selling our tool at

their locations. We will, however, need to deliver our tools from the factory to their offices via a local

courier and have added that cost.

While we aim to produce and sell 10,000 tools to convince ourselves that opening a factory of our

own is a worthwhile venture, we believe that an additional 10,000 tools will be produced and sold in

Phase III while our factory is being set up. We will also market our tool in Phase III to rubber plantation

owners. Exactly how we do this is yet to be determined, but it could involve, for example, inviting

rubber plantation owners to an event or dinner that unveils to tool. It might also involve hiring local

translators to produce signs advertising the tool (to be posted at the RBO, for example) packaging and

instructions in local languages for the tool itself. We will also continue direct sales to plantation owners

instead of relying solely on the RBO.

Our financial plan is for our team and other stakeholders to own stock in this business (a claim to

the profits), so stakeholder salary is not included as a cost. However, operations manager salaries,

secretary salaries, and other general and administrative costs are included and most likely

overestimated to be conservative (but there is simply no way to nail down those numbers well now).

Table 7 on the next page summarizes our costs and revenues for Phase III. Note that we estimate

that Phase III will last nine months, the last four months of which will overlap with Phase IV factory set‐

up after having sold 10,000 tools. We sell only 18,000 tools (out of 20,000 manufactured) to account for

lost shipments, faulty tools at time of manufacture, tools that do not last past warranty that must be

replaced, etc.


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Table 7: Phase III costs and revenues

Item Quantity Total cost

Costs

Tool manufacture (Table 4 figure plus 50%)

20,000 tools $ 75,000

Commission to contracted factory

20,000 tools $ 25,000

Distribution to RBO 200 shipments $ 8,000

Marketing 3 events and advertising materials

$ 12,000

Sales 10 salespeople for 9 months $ 2,800

General and administrative 2 operations managers, 1 secretary, other general costs

$ 9,000

Total Phase III costs $ 131,800

Revenues


18,000 tools $ 432,000

Phase III profit + $ 300,200

Phase III monthly profit + $ 33,356

Phase IV For this phase, we have estimated that our final production scale is 60,000 tools per year, only

54,000 of which will be sold to account for lost shipments, faulty tools at time of manufacture, tools that

do not last past warranty that must be replaced, etc. Our sources of costs and revenues will be the

same as for Phase III, except the following changes: (1) there is no longer commission to be paid to a

contracted factory and (2) we must now add two factory managers, machine maintenance and repair

costs, and overhead costs.

Because rubber tapping is a seasonal industry, we anticipate that sales will be substantially

fewer three months out of the year but then will peak at the end of those three months as rubber

tapping picks up again. We plan to maintain production at a constant rate of 5,000 tools per month so

that we can keep up with sales at that peak time, but this will require us to hold perhaps as many as

20,000 completed tools in inventory. We will not reduce our sales force as we will need just as many

salespeople attempting to make direct sales during the slow months, though we expect the yield per

salesperson to be less. Our secretary should receive fewer calls during this time, enabling him to

manage the increased inventory.


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Table 8 summarizes the fixed costs of Phase IV, and Table 9 summarizes the monthly costs and

revenues of Phase IV. Phase IV will start after 10,000 tools have been sold in Phase III, but since we

estimate that it will take four months to set up the factory, Phase III production will continue during that

time until Phase IV production starts. It should be noted that Table 9 figures are for the first year only;

as we learn about factory operations required for the manufacture of our tool, we should be able to

decrease the per unit production cost over time. Our target is a 6% reduction per year.

Table 8: Phase IV fixed costs

Item Cost

Shop machines and tools $ 10,000

Factory general (tables, shelves, etc.)

$ 5,000

Total Phase IV fixed costs $ 15,000

Table 9: Phase IV monthly variable costs and revenues

Item Quantity Total monthly cost

Costs

Tool manufacture (Table 4 figure)

5,000 tools/month $ 12,500

Machine maintenance and repair

All factory machines $ 1,500

Factory overhead 4,000 sq. ft. $ 8,000

Distribution to RBO 50 shipments $ 2,000

Marketing 3 events and advertising materials

$ 1,200

Sales 10 salespeople $ 310

General and administrative 2 operations managers, 2 factory managers, 1 secretary, other general costs

$ 1,500

Total Phase IV monthly costs $ 27,010

Revenues


4,500 tools/month $ 108,000

Phase IV monthly profit + $ 80,990

Figure 3 on the next page shows a phase timeline showing our projected costs, revenues, profit, and cumulative profit.

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Phase III will generate enough profit to fund Phase IV (and if it doesn’t, we won’t go on to Phase

IV). We estimate that Phase IV will require $42,000 in funding, $15,000 of which will cover fixed costs

and $27,000 (approximately one month of costs) of which will be used to establish a parts inventory and

start operations until revenue streams from sales arrive. To provide a continuous supply of rubber

tapping tools, Phase III will continue until full production has been established in Phase IV.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders in our business may be able to help finance our start‐up costs, make partnerships

with our business, or assist in distribution. Our team has identified the following potential stakeholders

in our business: Team Rubber Tap, E 105 professors and teaching assistants (Prof. Ken Pickar, Prof. Jason

Issac, Vinay Mathew John, and Michelle Jiang), the Rubber Board Office of India, rubber plantation

managers, contract manufacturers, and social entrepreneurship foundations.

Ethical Concerns

Since our tool enables women to more readily work as rubber tappers, we are concerned about

the exploitation of women for labor. We don’t believe that this will be a major issue because today

women do work as rubber tappers by choice. Our tool only makes that choice more viable by reducing

the effort and skill required in the process and should therefore reduce the level of exploitation of

women and empower more women to work as rubber tappers by choice. We will, however, continue to

interview women throughout all phases of our implementation plan and will be able to determine if the

exploitation of women is worsening in the field.

Since rubber tapping is currently perceived as a blue collar job in India, many rubber tappers

today come from minority groups and groups that have experienced discrimination. For example, 32%

of rubber tappers are Catholic, and 29% of rubber tappers come from the Ezhava community (a Hindu

group that has historically been considered of low caste). While we do not encourage this sort of blue

collar discrimination, it is a fact of the trade and something our tool will not make worse since our tool

makes rubber tapping less of a blue collar job. In marketing our tool, we will emphasize the ease of use

of our tool and will thereby challenge the blue collar perception of rubber tapping in an ethical effort to

reduce the exploitation of minority groups.


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Team Chemistry

All members of the team feel very satisfied with the mechanics of our group. In particular, we

believe that a focus on team communication has been extremely important in our success. Early in the

term several members of the team at one point or another felt overburdened. By creating an

environment in which team members were able to ask for help, we were able to share the work load

across all members and avoid conflict.

We faced a significant team challenge in communicating across the time and distance gap

between India and the United States. Instant messaging proved to be a very effective means of

communication to mitigate this problem. We also realized the importance of starting our work early in

order to allow sufficient time for collaboration across the time gap. Working in an international team

has been one of the most interesting and valuable experiences of E 105.

Conclusion

Today, rubber plantation owners in India are faced with labor shortages due to an aging rubber

tapper population in a growing industry for which young people are unwilling to work. To alleviate this

shortage of labor while increasing worker productivity, our team is developing a new rubber tapping

tool that allows unskilled laborers and women to work as rubber tappers without years of training. By

improving the ease of rubber tapping, in terms of both physical exertion and skill required, our tool

reduces the barriers that prevent prospective rubber tappers from wanting and getting a job.

In the natural rubber industry, India has 10.7% of the world market share at $4.8 billion annually

with 580,000 workers. Our team has a four phase plan to develop our new rubber tapping tool and sell

it to this market through direct sales and through the Rubber Board Office of India as a distributor.

Phase I is prototype development. Phase II market proof of concept by selling 50 tools to rubber

plantation owners. Phase III is large‐scale manufacture (at least 10,000 tools) contracted out in India.

Phase IV is full‐scale in‐house manufacture of 5,000 tools per month.

We are currently prototyping the tool (Phase I) in the U.S. and will send the prototype to our

team members in India for rubber tappers to test in the field and give us feedback. We will continue to

iterate on our design for an estimated three months after which we will meet with key stakeholders in

our business to discuss the viability of the product. If the group believes there will be a significant

demand for the product, we will incorporate our business and enter Phase II.

Documents

Rubber Tap