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Sonal GuptaTABLE OF CONTENTSINDEX PagePage 1 E/ME 105 Final Report Mini Combine Grain Harvester Gerardo Morabito Sonal Gupta Abin Denny Alexander Vivek Sam JohnPage 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INDEX Page 1. Executive Summary ………………………………………………… 3 2. Problem Statement ………………………………………………… 3 3. Mission Statement ………………………………………………….. 4 4. Market Research ………………………………………………………4 a. Target market b. Primary c. Secondary 5. Product Development …………………………………………..……7 a. Overall Design Concept b. Architectural Layout c. Design Specifications d. Design Factors 6. Business Plan and Financials ……………………………………..15 a. Cost Analysis and Pricing b. Sensitivity Analysis 7. Company Culture………………………………………………………19 a. Key People and Stakeholders b. Ethical Plan 8. Appendix……………………………………………………….………….20 a. Major Challenges Overcome and Future Directions b. Final Team Evaluation G 9. References…………………………………………………………………24Page 3 Executive Summary Kerala Agro Corp, a company based in Kerala India, has as its goal to provide small rice paddy owners a third option over resorting to manual labor to harvest their rice, and over renting a full-scale combine harvester. Kerala Agro Corp offers to small Keralite farmers the opportunity to purchase a miniature-sized combine harvester, about a tenth of the cost of a typical full-scale combine. While manual labor is expensive and becoming increasingly difficult to rely on due to shortages in the amount of Indians willing to work on the fields, renting a full-scale combine is often much more than required to harvest lands of a few acres. Our product is essentially the middle ground between these two extremes. It is our goal that our product will allow small rice paddy to spend even less than they would harvesting their crops with rented harvesters, by using our cheap, and easy to maintain mini-combine. However, this is not an easy task, because renting a full-feature combine harvester is surprisingly cheap. We have dedicated a lot of work to designing not only our harvester, but also the appropriate business and financial models that would allow us to provide small rice paddy owners in Kerala with a beneficial product, while allowing Kerala Agro Corp to start up, grow, and become a successful company. Problem Statement The intricate steps involved in planting, cultivating, harvesting, and preparing rice requires an immense labor force. However, recently Kerala has seen a shortage of skilled labor available for agriculture. Due to high literacy rate and an urbanized life style, a majority of the younger generation Keralites have migrated to Middle East & other countries in search of better jobs. The laborious nature of work, low-wage structure, low self esteem and lack of social status are some of the other reasons that lead to occupational mobility of the paddy field laborers to other lucrative fields. Because of this shortage the farmers have transitioned to using combine harvesters. These harvesters are available for purchase but because of their high costs, they are not affordable. However, agriculture groups make these available for rent on an hourly basis. But the small holding farm owners generally do not require the full-featured combine harvesters. Also, these combine harvesters are not available in all parts of rural Kerala due to financial or transportation reasons. Thus, there is a need for a smaller and efficient combine harvester which would be more accessible and also considerably cheaper.Page 4 Mission Statement Our mission is to create a portable, user-friendly and low cost mini combine harvester. Our harvester would not only perform reaping, binding and threshing of crops but it would also collect harvested grains in sacks and include an optional add-on hot air blower for rainy season harvesting unlike any full featured combine harvester. It would be available for purchase or for rent to individual paddy cultivators. Our mini-combine harvester would be manufactured using locally available spare parts and thus, would be easily maintainable. To make our product reliable, we aim to make the service life of our product be at least six years. Customers would be able to place an order for our product online, through the phone, through local mechanics or by walk-in at our factory. Target Market Our target market includes both male and female small rice paddy cultivators with land holdings of one or less acres, to about ten acres, in the state of Kerala, India. Our mini-combine harvesters would be available for both purchasing and renting. Eventually, we do plan to branch out to other agriculture centered states of Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh etc. For purchase • Areas with no access to renting full featured harvesters and where manual labor is not easily available. For renting • Small farms that do not need the complete harvesting capacity of full featured harvester to collect their crops. These would rent our product on per hour basis. • Larger farms that would prefer renting our harvester on per day basis. • In areas with no access to renting a full featured combine harvester with a shortage of labor. We based our target market mostly on our primary research. But, we did take into account our secondary research to determine our market for renting. Primary Market Research For our primary research we mostly interviewed paddy field owners in the state of Kerala, India. We also interviewed an agricultural officer who helped us decide the farmers to talk to and also gave us suggestions on design specifications based on the local demands. Our main purpose was to determine problems with the existing harvester to facilitate a better design for our product. Also, we made sure to inquire about features that they would like our mini combine to include which arePage 5 part of the existing full scale combine harvesters. Some of the issues with the existing harvesters are: • Makes a lot of noise. • Does not preserve the straw from


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CALTECH ME 105 - Final Report

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