Background to the Assignment

eCooking has taken a hold in the Tanzanian marketplace.  It is strongly supported by the Government of Tanzania in partnership with the United Kingdom and others as part of a multi fuel approach to clean cooking. 

Within the current market, almost all eCooking appliances are imported.  This creates a dependency on foreign exchange and global trading. Whilst international collaboration has its advantages, localizing as much of the assembly and manufacture of appliances as possible has the potential to create new jobs, accelerate local manufacturing capabilities for both eCooking wider products, and lead to greater use of local currency, all whilst enabling locally felt benefits of modern cooking.

Our research suggests that one of the challenges that holds back local manufacture of eCooking appliances is the need to invest significantly in capital equipment to produce the appliances in volume.  Plastic forming techniques, while known to be highly cost effective at producing consistent and high-quality components at large scale, demand high up-front capital investment. Absolute certainty of demand and a known demand for many thousands of units is required for these processes to be sensibly employed. 

Local manufacture typically produces handcrafted items that do not require heavy mechanical infrastructure, but as a result struggle to benefit from economies of scale and are reliant on individual worker skills for product quality and consistency.

MECS has developed a prototype design that we believe can be produced in the hundreds of units, giving a return on capital expenditure and enabling a viable business.  It is a combination of modern 3D printing technology and bespoke hand crafting. The manufacturing and assembly processes can be achieved without the need for capital intensive machinery. 

Through this RfQ, MECS is seeking a partner organisation to explore how best our prototyping ideas can be realized in the Tanzanian setting.

Full Terms of Reference are available via this link:

How to Apply 

Please click on the tab below to access the Response Form, which should be submitted to mecs@lboro.ac.uk. The subject line of the email must state: RfQ Local Manufacture.

Submission of Quotation

Quotations, should be submitted using the Response Form provided, and submitted to mecs@lboro.ac.uk. Please note quotations not submitted using the Response Form will not be considered.

Deadline 

Response forms should be received no later than Wednesday 26^th August at 23:55 BST. The time on the email received into the MECS inbox will be used to determine the closing time.