MakaPad Sealing Optimization

Abstract

MakaPad is a wonderful product designed by Dr. Moses Musaazi. His company, T4T, produces the MakaPad, a female sanitary pad for underprivileged women in third-world countries. The company is based in Uganda and provides hundreds of local labor jobs for women. A common problem in third-world countries is education for young girls. Without access to affordable sanitary pads young girls are not able to attend and keep up with school work during their menstrual cycles, missing up to a fourth of their school days. Currently, the MakaPad is the only affordable, biodegradable sanitary pad in Africa. Over 5 million pads are produced per year by T4T and the product is used mostly by low income women and refugees. One of the stages in the production of the MakaPad is to seal the paper layers inside of two layers of plastic. The current process uses a commercially available straight line sealer to seal along all four sides of the pads, and is only capable of sealing one side at a time. We have been tasked to improve this process in terms of production time, quality, and ease. With the help of our sponsors, Dr. Moses Musaazi, Professor Elijah Kannatey-Asibu, and Professor Chinedum Okwudire, and the contributions of previous ME 450 teams that have worked on this project, we hope to develop a functional prototype that meets all of our desired specifications and to then travel with the prototype to Uganda and introduce it to the workers.