LOW-COST PAPER BAG-MAKING MACHINE

In today’s competitive scenario coupled with the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic, there is need for incipient ideas that will set the benchmark high for solving multivariate issues plaguing the nation in such exceptional circumstances. There also lies a desperate need for such solutions to be accessible to the general populace, in order to reap compounding benefit of involving a large number of participants, as against concentrating the idea within a certain strata of the society. The main objective of this project is to cater to solving the rampant plastic bag consumption problem whilst providing INDIVIDUAL employment opportunities especially for the aged, concomitantly contributing to the acceleration of low-cost entrepreneurship to people from all walks of life. In the wake of the current pandemic, people are instinctively skeptical of investing their hard earned money, which has necessitated ideas that are inexpensive to implement, but promise accelerated short to medium term improvement in productivity. To bolster this thought, our team has strived to create a low-investment machine, with a very simple SOP (standard operating procedure) to expedite the production of paper bags. As seen from the attached photographs of the design, the construction is simple and robust, with a simpler operating procedure that need no special operating skills or training. The design principle is focused around reducing complex moving parts, minimal need for maintenance and strategic utilization of design space. Several iterations of design proposals later, our team has arrived at this design, which goes beyond par in satisfying the requirements, whilst strictly adhering to the above mentioned design principles. McKinsey&Company had estimated that the Indian pharma sector would grow to $55 billion (2020) at a growth rate of 13 to 14 percentage points, observed over the last 5 years. In the wake of a global pandemic, the growth rate has obviously seen a sharp rise, with the estimated worth possibly growing to a value much larger than $55 billion. With the alternative medicine industry also striving towards a possible antidote, the gravity of packaging and logistics of such possibly life-saving drugs also has taken centre stage. This is a favourable opportunity to implement our idea of a paper bag making machine, as it can ameliorate the current needs of the society, whilst providing short to mid-long term employment opportunities. Coming to the accessibility aspect of the idea, the machine is both low-cost and necessitates very low operator skill to obtain above par results. Low operator skill translates to the fact that the machine can be operated by wide spectrum of age groups, and the usability subtends to all genders of all financial stances. To alleviate job losses in a large number of middle to lower strata households, the idea of a low-cost machine to make in-demand paper bags seems fit to the need of the hour. Thus, considering the two juxtaposing vantage points, our simple idea of a low-cost paper bag machine might be a strategically penetrating solution to a mammoth of a multivariate problem.