"More From Less For More"

I recently watched a 2009 TED talk where the speaker, R.A. Mashelkar discussed “breakthrough design for ultra-low cost products”. In this presentation, he discussed how Tata Nano was conceived to its eventual production, the $28 foot and an ultra cost drug that treats Indian Psoriasis (it is an autoimmune disease that affects the skin. It is characterized by dry red patches on the skin covered with scales. Wikipedia). In the cause of his talk, he also talked about the $25 incubator by Stanford University students which otherwise costs $2,000.
The theme of his talk was however “more from less for more”. Sayings of Mahatma Gandhi were quoted a number of times from the which the speaker derived the theme.
The idea behind the theme is producing more for less to benefit more. Which makes a lot of sense except we have this idea that when stuff is mass produced, the quality tends to be inferior. Hence we shouldn't expect quality products from this school of thought.
Rightly so, yes. But through the presentation, one understands that the more from less for more school of thought is not looking to cater for everyone, in fact it targets those at the bottom of the food chain who would otherwise not have access to these things been produced.
For instance, how many people can afford a $20,000 artificial limb? Its even a rarity to see those who can afford it needing because most of the times, its the poor who need limbs due to some avoidable accidents they were involved in or all kinds. The $28 artificial limb is affordable to a few, in the sense that they do not need to save a fortune to get access to it.
The same thing goes for the Tata Nano car which took technology from the Indian three-wheelers and incorporated into a $2,000 vehicle. If some people can save up to $800 to $1,000 to buy motorcycles, then words cannot describe their joy in being able to add a few hundred dollars more to buy a car.
From the business aspect, Tata makes more money selling to this segment of the automotive sector and tapping the millions of profit to be made while competition broods.
To ensure the success of this modus operandi, extensive research has to be done to find a way around the prevailing norms and more importantly doing things the opposite way. Reference was made to medicine, where the speaker mentioned that the standard drug delivery process is to Do research  is done using molecules and chemicals, the result is then tested on mice before transfer to humans if successful. Their Psoriasis however worked in the opposite direction. Research is made on humans using the existing available treatment method, new found medication is then tested on mice before it is finally allowed on humans.
The key difference here is that, in the second case, the research proper is done using humans and not testing different molecular or chemical solutions. It is more like a crash test on an actual car to appreciate the crash impacts and know where to beef up in the actual production car.
Producing more from less entails using very little resources to produce, this justifies the low cost that the end product ends up and ensures its for more. Examples of such products are Chinko phones which are inferior phones produced with obviously very cheap materials and cost far less than its more expensive big name phones but with almost same features. Though with compromises in big areas of this phones like the screen resolution, audio quality etc., these phones are affordable to people who cannot afford the high-end brand names.
I'll end by encouraging the need to for more research on ultra-low cost items especially items essential to human survival and existence such as drugs, infrastructure needed to improve social amenities such as hospital equipments, housing construction methods etc. so as to be able to provide for more from the less that was expended.

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