Publication: Indulge
Date: 25/03/2011 Page 10
By SR

Offering a dream play-area for your five-year-old, Koochie play Systems will make you wish you were younger

ALL that Koochie Play Systems asks for is a portion of your space. “And we will create magic,” laughs Roben Dass, the man aging director. Having fashioned some lively play areas for residential societies, hotels and gated communities some of their clients being the brigade and Prestige group in the city (not to mention other impressive international client pool in Europe, UAE and Australia). Koochie’s play equioment will make you wish you were younger –or at least light enough to fit into their 3-12 age group.

What’s on offer

“Multi Play systems” are their forte (housing close to 40 models), apart from their popular adventure series. So a single unit would consist of a bunch of colorful slides at one end while other would consist of animated swings, hoops and climbers, “ A basic play area would have a multi play system as the centre point with several stand alones, say swings or seesaws around it,” smiles Dass, “it can be customized according to preferences.” Though Dass admits that he hasn’t fashioned play areas for single homes in India, he says he would take up a project if it comes up. “Our play systems are very safe,” he assures us, “they have the European certification, EN1176,”

Yes, Koochie would conceptualise, design and set up the area for you and “all you have to do is show us the space!”

Signs off Dass

A project would cost between Rs5lakhs and Rs50lakhs.  Details: www.koochieplay.com

Published on Economics Times
Date: 25/03/2011 Page 19
By Radhika P Nair

A playground equipment maker makes safety and quality its USP

In 2006, serial entrepreneur Roben Dass was a worried man. He used to enjoy taking his then six year old son to the neighbourhood park, but the play structures in the park were in a bad shape and Dass was constantly concerned about his son’s safety. It was out of this worry that he desided to start Koochie Play systems.

Dass was running six other successful businesses at the time. He spent two years researching the playground equipment market in the country trying out various designs and doing pilot projects. “More and more young parents are traveling abroad and there is an increasing awareness about safety. They are demanding better products,” says Dass. He realized there was an opportunity for an organized player in this highly fragmented segment. Which Dass pegs at over $100 million. In 2008, he took the greatest risk of his life: sold off his other businesses to concentrate solely on Koochie.

The company focuses on playground requirements of residential apartments, schools, resorts and clubs. The company’s design team is located in Chennai and a plant in south Korea does the manufacturing. Koochie has its own team for doing the installation work at the client location and for the future servicing of the structures.

The company today has revenues of $1million and is targeting revenues of $5million for FY 2011-12,But the going was not easy. “When we started, everyone said we are mad,” says Dass.  Builders could not understand why they had to spend more on equipments for which there are no safety stipulations in India.

Koochie equipment is expensive when compared to most Indian suppliers. A swing set comes at Rs25,000 while a complete installation costs an average of Rs 5-10Lakh and larger orders could go up to Rs 45Lakhs. In contrast, equipment from the unorganized sector can be priced as low as Rs 5,000 for a swing set. Consumers too regard Koochie as a premium brand, particularly as more competitors offer lower prices.

“Their prices are quite high. Newer players are entering the market at competitive rates,”says Ranjan Karulkar, chief articulturistnof Hiranandani Group, who bought their first Koochie products in 2008. Despite the high costs, the group continues to buy these products for their high quality. “We have not had a maintenance problem so far with their products,” added Karulkar.

The company bagged its first commercial project in 2008 in Chennai. At an apartment complex built by Akshaya Builders. Since then, the company has worked with a number of major builders in the country.

Dass is also looking to establish a foothold in global markets for the brand, which is now sold in five other countries, including France and Australia. To enter the European market, he decided to build a presence in France first, which has one of the most stringent safety requirements for playground equipment. It took Dass four attempts to get the EN1176 certificate, France’s safety certification for playground equipment.

Dass is aiming to make Koochie a $20 million company in the next three years. The company is aggressively expanding and plans to enter the lucrative American market soon.

Published on DNA
Date: 15/03/2011 – Page 2
By Pierre Yves Renoir

It’s something you take for granted – the neighborhood playground or even the one is apartment complex. It can’t really be all that bad can it? There are after all so many children playing on it and other than a few cuts and bruises there really hasn’t been anything to worry about. Well fact is, if you take the time out to look at the play area yourself, you will see that is in fact a lot to worry about. The safety of your children is quite questionable on the play units that are around today.

Most countries internationally have a stipulated stringent set of rules by which companies have to adhere to when it come to manufacturing play units, installing them and maintaining them. But in India, there are no safety rules and regulations. What you see on the play area is what you get.

Step onto the play area for a little recce of your own and take a closer look at the material the play units are made of slides, swing seats and seesaws are often made of fiber glass. After a while of being used, the smooth surface of fiber glass tends to wither away living behind a rough surface. Left unattended for a long time, it can end up in creating friction burns or even cuts on your child, Some of these play items are made of metal. Most evenings, children trend to rush to these play units without a second thought to the fact that they have been smoldering in the sun the entire day.

The surface of such metal based units heat to such to an extent, there have cases of children being burnt. There are also cases, largely in public playgrounds, where sliding board surfaces are made of stone. After a while, the stone begins to chip in places and you have dangerous holes and rough edges which the children go down on unknowingly.

Molded plastic is best material to use in play units and can combat all of the issues raised by other materials. It is virgin plastic that is of high quality. It is completely weather-proof and durable under the worst onslaught of wheather as well as children. Engineered together in the right manner, this material makes for some of the most aesthetic as well as safe play units.

Another aspects of playgrounds is the manufacturer’s desire to install as many units as possible to take the most of his contract. Spacing is very important in playgrounds, seesaws have to be positioned a minimum of 9ft away from swings and other units. A single swing bay should not have more than two swings for balance as well as safety. And more importantly, play units and areas have to be segregated based on age group. This ensures that underage children don’t end in areas where should not be and inadvertently get hurt.

Elevated surfaces are the main highlight of any play unit. Children enjoy climbing up to the top of a slide. A good play unit will have maximum height of 5ft for pre-schoolers  and 7ft for school going children. Also, the need to have guard rails right around them. Additionally these guards rails need to be vertical in order to prevent the adventurous ones from climbing higher.

Besides these aspects here are some points for you to keep in mind.

Don’t dress children in clothes that have draw strings, these can get caught in play units.

Make sure all cycles, books, skates and other paraphernalia are kept far away from the play area.

Play areas need to be securely fenced to prevent children from wandering away.  Avoid anything that dangles like long earrings, chains, bracelets or belts. These can get caught on play units.

Better safe than sorry is a clichéd adage that means more than anything in cases where your child’s safety is at stake.

(The author is the InternationalnDirector, France, Koochie Play Systems, an international playground equipment design and manufacturing company)

Merlin Francis

Despite the Garden City tag, Bangalore still has a long way to go to make itself accessible to the disabled people. Of nearly 710 parks in Bangalore, only three Coles Park, MN Krishna Park in Basavanagudi and Gayathri Devi Park in Rajajinagar are wheelchair-friendly or “Inclusive”.

Kavitha Krishnamoorthy, founder of Kilikili, a trust that works for inclusive play spaces, said,” An inclusive Park is accessible to everyone and includes both disabled and well as abled children, and the equipment can be used by both.”

Apart from the ramp at the gate and pathways for a wheel chair, an inclusive park will also include a safe swing set or family swing that can seat both the child and adult, wheel chair s can also play.

“These can be used by all children,” said Kavitha. “They just come with a few modifications so that children with a disability can also be included.”

The remodeling of the Coles Park cost about Rs6.5Lakhs and nearly 5Lakh came from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) alone. “The park was modified after consultations with the childrens, special educators, and occupation therapists.” she said, adding that K Jayaraj, former commissioner of the BBMP, sanctioned two more such Parks in the south and west zones of the BBMP (Rajajinagar and Basavanagudi)

In Kavitha’s opinion modifying existing Parks to make it inclusive may cost the BBMP slightly more than the already allocated Rs4Lakh for renovation of play spaces.

“Every three to four years, about Rs4Lakh is allocated for renovation of play spaces. By using this money creatively, in consultation with groups working with disabled children, all the parks in the city can be made disabled-friendly”. She said, Nevertheless, proposals to make atleast another four inclusive play spaces at Jayanagar, Whitefield and Koramangala 1 Block and Jeevanabhimanagara are with the BBMP for the last Two and Half Years,

“The last year has been slow despite repeated efforts to complete these projects”, said Kavitha.

“The original site for such a Park in Jayanagar was taken over for the Metro, Though we proposed a number of their sites over the last two years, nothing has come out of it,” With regard to the Koramangala park, she said that evan though nearly 50% of the work has been completed, the remaining work has been at a stand-still for some time now, The BBMP has cited monetary crunches.

Most parents have safety and health concerns about children’s play equipment

In schools and public parks, but lack choice. That might be about to change

With new generation play units, says Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

It almost have happened to you as a parent at some point – your child comes back home

from the nearby play ground with a cut on her leg that came from sliding down a corroded fiber glass slide. Or howling his head off for having toppled off a swing that was lop-sided. You also would have heard scary stories of over-enthusiastic kids falling off the top of sliding boards that don’t have guard-rails or burning themselves on metal swing seats and slides that have been smoldering in the sun the entire day.

While sometimes we may dismiss this as part of the game and minor, such aspects of play ground safety are actually too dangerous to ignore. While small cuts and scratches are often not enough to drive the point of playground safety home for us, it would be a better idea not to wait for major accidents that lead to broken bones and sometimes even death to bring about a change.

Says Roben Dass, chairman and managing director, Koochie Play Systems, “While some countries have clearly laid out guidelines on how playground equipments are supposed to be manufactured ond installed [such as EN1176 in Europe and ASTM in America],India has no such guidelines or stipulations that are required to be followed. Anybody can manufacture anything and that is used without a second thought. Safety, thus far has been relegated to the background. “Koochie is the only Indo-Asian company that has secured the prestigious. EN1176 certification from Europe for its play units.

The main issue we have with the play units installed in most residential areas today is their questionable durability. The onslaught of weather and of course of several children constantly beating down on these play systems is bound to erode their surfaces in a dangerous way. And that’s why fiber glass surfaces crack, wooden steps splinter and movable parts on swings come loose from their bearings. Molded plastic is the key to building safe units, emphasizes Roben, adding that metal and fiber glass should be completely done away with.

Here is what Roben feels you as a parent should know about safe playground units:

Surfacing is vital: A playground surface should be such that is cushions a child’s fall. Concrete, asphalt, blacktop and even packed earth do not fit the bill and be quite unhygienic. Every playground should ideally have a surface mat that extends around six feet of the playground area.

Design and space: Safe playgrounds are those that are separated based on age group. This ensures that underage children do not have access to units that they should not be on. Spacing between units is also important. One bay should hold only two swings and toddler swing sets should be kept away from everything else. There should be a minimum of 9ft. distance between each play unit.

For elevated units such as slide sets, there should be a maximum fall height of 5 ft for preschoolers and 7ft for school-going children. All the rails installed should be vertical and not horizontal. This prevents adventurous children from climbing higher.

Entrapment-proof: Curious children love to stick their fingers, feet and sometimes even their heads into nooks and corners of play units. Your child can end up stuck or with a serious injury in such cases. Play units have to be designed such to prevent children from getting into such trouble. Precision engineering plays an important role here.

Maintenance: And finally play units need to be constantly inspected and well maintained, irrespective of whether they are on a public playground or a private apartment complex.

What is good to note that several private builders are taking an increased notice of the quality of the play units that are being installed on their properties? It is after all a question of their reputation. But public playgrounds have a long way to go. And as with every big change, it has to come with us taking a stand.

After 2 years of installation

Koochie Play Systems, Sample playground equipment after 2 years of installation

After 3 years of installation

Koochie Play Systems, Sample playground equipment after 3 years of installation