Consulting for Sustainability
Customized. Effective. Focused on coffee and economic development.
Call us at: (734) 717-6278
Lean At Origin Overview
Profitable, Climate Smart and Gender Equal Coffee Processing. LEAN means: Achieving customer satisfaction through the most efficient use of time, water, machines, operators, coffee cherry, information, etc. The relentless pursuit, identification and elimination of waste!
"Lean at Origin" training and consulting delivers bottom-line results for producer organizations, exporters, importers… the entire value chain.
Lean At Origin Examples
2021-2022: Sustainable Growers Rwanda, invested ~ $30,000 in Lean Training for its three flagship cooperatives. Impacts included 13% reduction in floater cherries, tripled throughput of the depulping machine and 30% reduction in waste found in sinkers.
2019: Polus Center / Idjwi Island, DRC. Lean at Origin training emphasizes anti-bias training for amputees and victims of DRC's civil war, in addition to quality improvements through waste reduction.
2016-2017: Trademark East Africa, Rwanda + Burundi: Lean at Origin training included in larger Coffee Trade Efficiency program. Results include new differentiated pricing at at Kopakama, lean implementation at Horomama dry mill and new quality metrics at Dusangirijambo.
Impact Assessment & Evaluation
Using modern, participatory methods for impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, Artisan helps projects focused on coffee and development to measure their progress towards goals. The basic steps include selecting the right but few indicators, deploying tools and people to the field to collect relevant data and guiding project management with analysis of that data. Views and insights from target beneficiaries are gathered and help ensure project success.
Previous clients include United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Cost Assessment
Artisan offers roasters and producers cutting-edge analysis of costs of production on the farm and at the processing mills. With a proven track record of measuring and reducing costs at both wet mills and dry mills in East Africa, Artisan is the right partner to support your company's sustainability initiative. What inspires us? The knowledge that rationalizing costs improves the ability to pay farmers for quality coffee.
Past clients include Kopakama cooperative (Rwanda); Dusangirijambo (Burundi)
Business Planning
Start-ups are increasingly asked to demonstrate profitability and scalability on paper to their donors and investors. Artisan has delivered business plans resulting in funded operations for both the consuming side of coffee (e.g. Ethiopian Cupping Caravan) and the production side (plan for a women's coffee cooperative in Rwanda.)
Past clients include the United Nations International Trade Commission and Boot Coffee.