The Design Clinic Scheme for
MSMEs has now completed three years of its implementation. The Ministry of
MSMEs, Government of India launched the scheme on 17th February 2010 with the
target of reaching out to 200 MSME industry clusters through organisation of
Design Sensitisation Seminars, Design Awareness Programmes, Orientation
Programmes and Design Projects.
While the scheme implementation
team achieved the targets of organising 200 Design Sensitisation Seminars, and
18 Orientation Programmes have been organized, covering 25 states and union territories, to
sensitise and expose the MSMEs and different stakeholders of the scheme, the
benefits of design as well as the design clinic scheme; over 120 Design
Awareness Programmes, DAPs, have helped bring the designers to the doorsteps of
over 1400 MSME industries across the country, to discuss, explore, identify
different opportunities and develop remedial solutions and strategies for their future growth.
The benefits of
design, as emerged through these programmes and projects as demonstrative
examples and case studies, have helped MSMEs and its stakeholders to further
explore and try out the components of the design clinic scheme. Thus, while the
MSME associations and the individual MSME units are coming forward with their
share of required contribution/s to organize DAPs, contributions are also
received from the local bank, large scale industry etc. for organising DAPs for
their respective MSME units and/or
vendors. Also various state governments have come forward with the required
share of contribution to organize DAPs for different MSME clusters in their
respective states. 20 DAPs in the state of West-Bengal are being organised with
the required 25% contribution from the state government. Similar contribution
and supports have been received from the state government of Karnataka, Assam
and from the state government Haryana.
Design, especially
for the micro and small-scale industries, acts as catalyst to bring in positive
approach and the much needed improvements in their products, processes and the
system as a whole. Design helps bring people / industry /unit owners to come
together and face the challenges of the contemporary markets of today. Design thus helps bring in new enthusiasm and
energy. The Design Awareness Programmes, DAPs organised at Ambala, Haryana ably
demonstrates these benefits to the MSMEs.
The PHD Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, PHDCCI, the multi-state organisation along with the
Ambala Scientific Instruments Manufacturing Association, ASIMA came forward
with the proposal to organize 10 Design Awareness Programmes, to cover majority
of their industry members to sensitise and benefit from design. This
industrious town located 200 Kms. north of Delhi is famously known as the “City
of Scientific Instruments”. With over 800 units engaged in the business, Ambala
is today the hub for scientific instruments that supplies to majority of
schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and medical colleges, research
laboratories etc. in the country. These units manufacture over 20,000 different
types of instruments using more than 50 types of different raw materials. With
the annual turnover of approx. Rs. 800 crore (with 25% from export), these
units provide employment to more than 4000 skilled and semi skilled
workers.
The enthusiastic
members of ASIMA formed 10 different groups of units, each involved in manufacturing
similar types of instruments / equipment; namely Glassware, Heating Equipment,
Biological Microscope, Electrical Instruments, Physics Instruments, Optical Instruments,
Electronics Equipment, Pharmacy & Pharmacology Equipment, Woodware and
Clean Air Equipment manufacturing units. From these, five Design Awareness
Programme, DAPs (including Need Assessment Survey, NAS, and Workshop) have
already been completed so far and NAS for the remaining groups are in process /
being organized.
The DAPs helped
bring designers to the doorsteps of these industries to discuss and explore
opportunities and strategy for their further development and future growth. For
each of the programmes the designer/s visited around 20 units from their group
of industries to understand the problems and issues involved both at the micro
as well as macro level. The NAS reports thus prepared, as preparation for organizing
the workshop/s, besides detailed need and opportunity mapping also included
detailed research on the technological and market trends, competitors etc. (reports at http://www.designclinicsmsme.org/empanelment-media-reports/reports/design-awareness-programme-reports
) Series of five workshops, each of the duration of five days were then
organized within the span of one month. These workshops helped bring all the
stakeholders – the unit owners, association members, designers, experts from
various related fields, Government officials etc. - onto common platform to
discuss their various problems / issues faced by the group/s. Coupled with this
the series of presentations, expert lectures, brainstorming sessions, hands-on
assignment sessions, idea generation and model / prototype development sessions
etc. resulted in bringing in the much needed positive mindset, new found
enthusiasm and approach.
New innovations in the form of digital microscope with touch
screen control, magnification attachments with the smartphones, web cam
computer connectivity etc. presented by the senior designer Mr. Balasubramaniam
exposed the participants of the biological microscope cluster, to the future
trends of their industry sector, and thereby opened them up to new vision and
new directions. A visit to one of the
college, Sanatan Dharma College at Ambala, organized for the participants of
the Physics Instruments Cluster, by its designer Mr. Ajit Dandekar as part of
the workshop, probably for the first time exposed the participants to the
actual usage of their instruments by their customers – the students and the
teachers. And the idea generation and prototype development sessions by Mr.
Kulveer Singh Bhati the designer involved with the Glassware Industry cluster
resulted into the development of a range of new products and applications
within the span of five days of their workshop.
Each of these
workshops began with sharing of the findings of the need assessment survey, NAS
report/s in terms of issues / problems / opportunities identified for the
specific cluster at the individual unit level as well as cluster level. These
formed the basis of the discussions during the next five days and many of the
issues identified - from developing and exploring new applications / markets to
developing improved joineries, processes etc. - were taken up further for
developing their solutions during the workshop/s itself. Besides these, the
participants were exposed to various related areas such as IPR, Lean
manufacturing, Integrated Industrial Development, Product Branding, Creative
Management and Entrepreneurship etc. Several experienced leading designers and
domain experts made presentations of different case studies and shared their
experiences and insights as well as also provided guidance and solutions to
specific problems.
The initiative
started by Mr. Ashwani Goel and Mr. Vipan Sarin, ASIMA, Ambala with positive
and encouraging support and the much needed guidance by the PHDCCI, Delhi and
facilitated by Mrs. Bindoo Ranjan, Design Clinic Scheme Zonal Center, Delhi, has
now emerged as a major movement in Ambala. Timely encouragements from Shri.
Satya Prakash, Director, Dept. of Industries, Government of Haryana and by
Shri. Vijay Kumar, Director, MSME DI, Karnal, Haryana have helped further
motivate the members to take these initiatives forward. It is indeed heartening
to note that the Government of Haryana has approved setting up of the Common
Facility Center, CFC at Ambala ( and the approval for organizing 10 DAPs for
different MSME clusters in the state of Haryana). The unit owners and the
members of the industry association, majority of them earlier looked at each
other as their competitors, are now actively participating with each other. The
e-group formed by them having its members and experts from various different
fields, universities, research organizations and government, has now become a
platform for them for continuous discussion and information sharing. The
younger generation / the young entrepreneurs of Ambala are now taking active
interests as head/ coordinator of different sub-groups formed for various tasks
/ action plans worked out as workshop/s outcomes.
MSMEs face many challenges simultaneously for their daily struggle
for survival. They find themselves entangled in the web of issues and problems,
making it difficult to explore new opportunities. One of the unit owner at
Ambala, as told me during my visit… “Ambala
main koi bhukhe nahi marta; lekin koi tarakki nahi karta” (nobody dies of
hunger in Ambala; but nobody grows) is the telling reality that the MSMEs face
today. I hope the initiatives of the
Design Clinic Scheme, with encouraging support from its different stakeholders,
will help bring in the much needed positive change for the industries and their
owners at Ambala, some of which have already been visible now. As Kulveer Singh
Bhati, the designer involved with the glassware cluster mentioned in his
conclusion.. “I am really amazed to see
the strength of the Ambala scientific industry, its not only a heritage
industrial town but also an exceptional production hub… …with some advancement in technology and
improvement in product quality the industry can again
reach the heights.” …
the industries at Ambala have the experience and capability to make this much
needed change and progression.
