How we exported our first sanitary pad-making machine to Bangladesh!

Access to menstrual hygiene is a basic human right and the fight to provide this basic necessity to every woman is something we are working towards at?Saral Designs. Availability of?sanitary napkins?is a huge problem in our country, especially since most good quality pads produced, are either imported or very expensive. In my experience of working in this field for 2.5 years, I have observed that the?commercial manufacturing machines that make high-quality pads?are high-speed, expensive (10 crores 40 crores), and require huge marketing budgets for selling nearly 20 million pads every month. These machines which are imported from countries like China, Italy, and Germany are meant for bulk manufacturing, making it difficult for small-scale businesses to sell such a huge quantity of pads.

In India, most machines developed are manually operated and are unable to produce?ultra-thin pads. Being a part of India’s first hardware start-up that has designed a one of kind?automatic sanitary napkin-making machine, our aim is to create access at the last mile and set up machines in different locations, enabling local manufacturing and distribution.

To put to test this decentralization model of ours, we exported our first machine-?Swachh 2.0?in 2017 to a local entrepreneur in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ariful Forquan identified the need for female garment workers in nearby factories which causes several women to miss work or use unhygienic materials during their periods like husk, newspapers, ragged cloth, etc. As a factory owner himself, he faced a lot of problems due to the regular absenteeism of female workers. When he delved deeper into the matter, he found out that the problem is prevalent mainly due to the lack of access and availability of?high-quality menstrual hygiene products?in the local markets. After extensive research and meetings with many manufacturers, Ariful realized that with manually operated machines, the product quality is poor and the model cannot be scaled, while the high-speed lines require very high investments to start off. The hunt for a solution to this problem led Ariful Forquan and his business partner, Dr.Kalam, to meet with Saral Designs Founders Suhani Mohan & Kartik Mehta.

Once the deal was finalized, we vowed to provide our new Production partners with an end to end training on running a?sanitary pad making business. Our operations head put together a 3-week training program for Ariful and his team where each member from?Saral Designs?conducted detailed sessions depending on their field of expertise. It provided a holistic experience of running a business. The training involved interactive sessions on the following topics:

• Technical know-how: In-depth understanding of the machine, how to operate, and maintain it, and explanation of all manuals related.
• Pad construction:?Making and Composition of?sanitary pads, quality check and control, Raw material performance.
• Sales and distribution: Support with partnerships and proposal writing, introduction to training modules, etc.
• Design and marketing:?Packaging and designing of pads, content generation for social media, and marketing techniques on different platforms.

Once Ariful and his team left, we crated the machine and prepared for its departure to Dhaka. The task of transporting a 300 kg machine across the sea, was executed effortlessly.

However, our job was not finished here! We still had to install the machine in Dhaka and ensure it was up and running smoothly. To help our partners understand the expected timeline to set up a?Swacch machine, we broke down the process right from finalizing the deal to beginning production into steps as shown below:

On reaching Dhaka, we immediately got to work and within two days assembled the entire machine. We started?production of sanitary pads?from the third day and everything else fell perfectly into place! We stayed there for 7 more days to support them with any unforeseen issues that might arise pertaining to the machine. We left Dhaka with a feeling of accomplishment and self-assurance for having successfully completed the job at hand.

The set-up of our machine in Bangladesh has instilled confidence in the entire?team of Saral Design. It has reassured us that our decentralization model when implemented across the countries in need of it, will create last-mile access, provide job opportunities, and empower women. There is a clear and evident need for better?menstrual hygiene products,?especially in developing countries but due to the lack of access to such?quality sanitary pads, the demand is not adequately met. We at?Saral Designs?are here to ensure this gap disappears and that every woman lives her life with dignity and confidence.