Company Background

Startup company serving the off grid electricity market enabling energy utilities to sell energy anywhere on the planet.

They achieve this through a combination of hardware (smart meters and hubs),  and a cloud based remote metering and payments system, which provides real time data direct to the utilities computer screens from across the world.

Founded in Kenya in 2012, they are now headquartered in Manchester, UK,  with a design lab in Africa, and they have doubled in size over the last 18 months.

Their technology is an enabler for 1.2bn new consumers to benefit from clean, abundant energy.

Issue

They came to Delta Impact at a time when they had  developed and field tested an initial product and achieved some sales, but in order to meet the volume demands and price points in a very cost conscious market, they needed a partner.

Solution

We began by manufacturing their hubs, and then their smart meters, in a much more timely fashion than before, as well as hitting key price points. Then manufacturing moved from UK to Eastern Europe as the volumes increased, and for the highest volume products, manufacturing transferred to our partners in China. At the same time, a roadmap for further cost reduction through design changes was agreed, such that significant cost reductions would be seen once the development was completed.

Benefits

Delta Impact has significant buying power, so were able to reduce the cost of their existing designs immediately. Our supply chain expertise also enabled them to significantly reduce the lead times quoted on new orders. Working with our manufacturing partners in UK, Eastern Europe and China has enabled them to operate more efficiently, minimising the movement of key components and further cutting lead times. Due to the very rapid growth of the company, it was essential that they could confidently bid for, and win, new high volume orders in the knowledge that the supply chain was totally secure and scalable.

We worked with them to design a new cost reduced product, which not only costs significantly less to manufacture than the original design, but also benefits from having more features and in being a smaller, lighter product. By having the designers involved with the supply chain experts, key design decisions were informed by component availability, price, lead times  and future proofing.

Working with Delta Impact also enabled them to focus on their core business of supplying off grid consumers with energy and not having to hire a team of people to design, manufacture, warehouse and deliver the products to their customers.