Design and Development of Manual Mixer

Consumer products form one of the most successful and growing segments of the Indian manufacturing sector. Electrically powered products dominate among the various gadgets available in the Indian market and the scope is vast for introducing manual products. Which would find application in both rural and urban households when the electricity is not available and also to reduce electricity consumption. This paper addresses the need for the design and development of a manual mixer grinder for rural and urban households. The initial part of the paper focused on market survey and ethnography research. The results of the basic research were used to formulate the design brief. Based on Quality Function Deployment (QFD), the consumer voice was translated to technical voice to arrive at the Product Design Specification (PDS). Concepts were developed using various design tools and techniques including technical descriptors like gears mechanisms. The design concepts were evaluated using the weighted ranking method. The highest ranked concept was chosen for detailed design including choice of material and manufacturing process as per DFMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly). The detailed design included preparation of technical drawings and digital product renderings using CATIA software. A 1: 1 full-scale working model of the proposed manual mixer grinder for use in rural and urban households was fabricated following pertinent manufacturing and assembly practices for testing and design validation with the user group. Test is conducted by grinding 150 gm of socked dal. The output of the mixer is 1000 rotation per 120 rotation of handle. The result obtained was fine grinded paste.