When we arrived at the factory in Mumias we quickly noticed that some adjustments had to be made to make sure the product would also work for local phones. Wilson and (the man who makes the mould) Mukanda were very excited about our idea. After making the adjustments in our Solidworks file the next step was to negotiate about the price of the mould with Mukanda. The negotiation was though and lasted about 5 hours! We experienced how difficult it was getting to a fair price for the materials and labour. The prices in The Netherlands are totally different due to the lack of availability and infrastucture here in Kenya. This led to information asymmetry but in the end we’re happy with the outcome!
Meanwhile, a few weeks later, Mukanda is still working on the mould. Because of the complexity he searched for reinforcement of his colleagues in Nairobi. For us this means more complexity because there is a third party involved which we don’t know. Unfortunately the process is slowed down and because of this the deadlines we had are already moves three times. Luckily we have another project we can work on. We’re making a new machine, so we have plenty of things to do!
In the meantime almost all of the parts of the mould are done except for the inner part. This part is the most complex because two holes have to be made with a small part in between.
Between Christmas and New year the process of making the mould has been halted because the factory was closed. We’re glad that the mould is almost finished now and hopefully it’s done by Monday! You can follow the course of our project in the next update!
