Entrepreneurial Empowerment through Design

IAnD Exclusive

Design Impact Special

By Team IAnD

Photography: Courtesy NID

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Commemorating the initial success of the Design Clinic Scheme empowering MSMEs, 21 success stories of completed design projects in India have been launched as a Book, “Entrepreneurial Empowerment through Design”. 

When we embarked on our week-long foray into ‘design impacting society’, our Guest Editor, Prof. Anil Gupta urged designers to join hands with grassroots innovators to effect a tangible change in society. 

Book Cover

As we wrap up our Design Impact Special Edition, we take pride in communicating the initial round of success in the Design Clinic Scheme (DCS) for MSMEs, launched in February’2010 under the aegis of the Ministry of MSME, GOI and implemented by National Institute of Design – a unique and ambitious design intervention implementation scheme for the micro, small and medium scale industries at large. The scheme brings exposure to design thinking and processes to the doorsteps of industry clusters for design awareness, improvement, evaluation, analysis and design related intervention and application.

Continuous Ice Cream Freezer - design intervention is expected to save material cost on fabricated components by 15%, reduce assembly time by 20% and maintenance cost and time by 20%. Besides 30% reduction in weight of the chassis and cabinet covers and 20% reduction in the volume of the equipment among other aspects.

Design Clinic Scheme aims to bring the MSME sector and design expertise on to a common platform and provide expert advice and solutions on real time design problems, resulting in continuous improvement and value addition for existing products and services. Design consulting firms, independent design practitioners, and various design institutes of the country and design students as well, can assist in the country’s vast MSME sector to move up the value chain, through value addition and competitive edge of their products and services.

Bottling Vision Machine - In a nut shell, simple design intervention has led to increased margins for the client and enhanced perceived value for the product.

The book documents hands-on information through several case studies on projects that have been empowered by design intervention. The compilation presents a valuable overview to the design process and its application among select MSMEs, who took advantage of the scheme’s activities. The information in there is intended to help MSMEs and design professionals understand better the design needs of a large number of MSMEs, who may come forward and seek design intervention for improving their products and services.

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 Design Clinic Scheme - Outreach

Commendably, under the scheme, 311 Design Awareness Seminars, 27 Orientation Programmes and 166 Design Awareness Programmes have been completed across the country while many more are in the pipeline. The initiative has received 312 Professional Design Projects and 158 Student Design Projects from various MSME units; and 779 Design Consultants, 321 Design Firms, 51 Design Institutes, 383Design Students, 247 MSME Associations, 1571 MSME Units and 23 Government organizations have been registered under the scheme. The scheme provides immense opportunity to a large sector of MSMEs (Associations and Units) as well as to the Indian Design fraternity.

For details, do visit www.designclinicsmsme.org