SimGas’ Biogas Milk Chiller : Challenges with applying sustainability and usability when developing for the East-Africsn mstkry from a small company in Europe.

Sammanfattning: SimGas B.V. is a Dutch company and is today the largest supplier of biogas systems in EastAfrica. Since 2013, SimGas has been developing a biogas-driven milk chiller in order to provide a solution to the milk spoilage problem of small-scale dairy farmers in East-Africa. In this project, a case study was conducted to identify the challenges of applying sustainability and usability in developing a product for an East-African market. In the case study, Ellinore Seybolt and Carrie Zhong, Master students of Industrial Design Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, joined the process of developing a biogas-driven milk chiller for East-African farmers as interns at the company SimGas B.V. in The Hague, The Netherlands. The project was performed in close collaboration with the research and development team of the Biogas Milk Chiller. As part of this collaboration, the structure of the project was adapted to fit SimGas’ agile way of working. This resulted in that the project was divided in sprints. Participating in a design process for users overseas from a different culture and with the absence of direct contact with the users proved to be a challenge. Towards the end, Ellinore and Carrie got the opportunity to meet users in a field trip that could validate many assumptions made in the beginning of the project, such as that it was indeed the wife of the household who would be the main user. Furthermore, it proved challenging to design for sustainability with a low target cost price and when promising materials found, they were not yet ready for the market. To propose a sustainable disposal of the remains of the product in East-Africa, also proved to be challenging when the available facilities were unknown. Another challenge was to integrate into the culture of a small Dutch company as Swedish interns. The project resulted in alternative design solutions for the Biogas Milk Chiller that would improve the usability and sustainability of the product. The conclusions of this project can also be seen as a foundation for design choices of future Biogas Milk Chiller concepts for SimGas B.V.