In the period September 2003 till January 2004, I have been in Ecuador for my internship. One part of the internship, I worked on the University ‘Escuela Politecnica Nacional’ which is the biggest public technical university within the country. However, the largest part of the internship, I worked within the company ‘Modulares’ for a pilot-project on Ecodesign.
Modulares is one of the dozens of self-employed kitchen companies in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. A total of 30 persons are working in the process from production till installation at the customers’ house. Ecodesign stands for ecological and economical design. The aim of Ecodesign is to do a detailed study of the company and the total lifecycle of the product, resulting in an integral redesign of their current product. I collaborated with all disciplines within the company: design, production, administration and installation. The information collection within a company and the persuasion of the department managers was a valuable experience to me. At the end of the internship, I did a proposal for different redesigns of their modulated kitchens and bathroom furniture.