These Screws Build Life-Changing Washing Machines: Accu x The Washing Machine Project
Inside the Divya manual washing machine
Navjot Sawhney was an engineer living in Britain, building vacuum cleaners for a global brand.
Feeling he needed to explore other opportunities to use his engineering skills to improve people's lives in a bigger way, he moved to southern India, initially working on clean and efficient cookstoves. Nav rented a place next door to a woman called Divya, who soon became one of his best friends.
Every time he walked past Divya's house, he noticed that she was washing clothes by hand. He asked "what are you doing, why are you hand washing your clothes" before offering to buy her an electric washing machine, but she explained why that would not help: she had no generator and no running water.
This struck a chord with Nav and he made her a promise before he flew home: one day he would come back and he would bring her a washing machine that solved the problem.
The first version was designed by taking inspiration from a salad spinner on his mother's kitchen table, built and tested with a group of his friends washing their own socks in it. The second iteration was a blue plastic drum supported by a wooden structure. They took it to a refugee camp in Iraq, where it leaked. It had been built to start conversations rather than to last and the families living in the camp gave the team the user research that shaped the next model.
The machine that came out the other end of this continual process of innovation is called the Divya Manual Washing Machine, named after Nav's friend and in honour of the promise he made. The machine is operated manually, running without the need for electricity or plumbing. It strips down with two tools and is built to last ten years in places where a broken appliance stays broken.
Every fastener and fixing in the UK-spec machine comes from Accu. So do the majority of the components in the US builds. This is the story of The Washing Machine Project and why small parts matter most in the hardest places to work.
The Washing Machine Project is a UK charity founded by engineer Navjot Sawhney. It designs and distributes the Divya Manual Washing Machine to households and communities without reliable electricity or piped water, and has reached 105,000 people to date with a goal of one million by 2030.
"I was an engineer in the UK. I was fed up of making vacuum cleaners for rich people."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
Contents:
- The Global Laundry Divide
- How The Divya Manual Washing Machine Works
- Designing For The Places Where Repairs Need To Be Simple
- Where Accu Components Do The Work
- The Same Machine, Built On Two Continents
- Built With, Not Just For: Côte d'Ivoire
- What Reclaimed Time Actually Buys
- Why This Is Engineering, Where It Really Makes A Difference
- Frequently Asked Questions
Key facts:
- Product: Divya Manual Washing Machine, built by The Washing Machine Project
- Power and water: none required, no electricity and no plumbing
- Capacity: 5 to 7kg, roughly 20 to 25 garments
- Water per wash: around 30 litres, roughly half what hand washing takes
- Time per wash: around 30 minutes, of which about 6 minutes is active turning
- Design life: ten years
- Built in: Bristol, UK and Michigan, USA with the Whirlpool Foundation
- Reach: 105,000 people to date, targeting one million by 2030
- Accu's role: all fasteners and fixings in the UK-spec machine, the majority of components in US builds
The Global Laundry Divide
Over half the world's population washes clothes by hand. For many it takes almost a full day's work each week, just to keep their clothes clean.
In Britain, around 95% of households have access to an electric washing machine. In Kenya, one of the countries where The Washing Machine Project (TWMP) works, it is closer to 2%, according to TWMP's own country research.
Flora Edmiston, TWMP's partnerships manager, makes the point that the global figure (that over half of people worldwide have an electric washing machine) hides the divide rather than showing it. Set the two national numbers side by side and it's clear to see that the gap between them is enormous.
Nav describes women spending up to 20 hours a week on their hands and knees at lakes and buckets, in cold water, with the back pain, joint pain and skin irritation that follows. The burden is not evenly shared between genders, another aspect to the divide that TWMP took into consideration when designing the Divya Manual Washing Machine.
"It's often the role of women that hand wash clothes, and it's an opportunity killer."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
In TWMP's own field research in Iraq, 29 of the 30 people responsible for hand washing were women. In Kenya, more than half. In a refugee settlement in Greece it was 76.9%. Across every context TWMP has measured, the load falls between three and thirty times more heavily on women than on men and the gap widens in the most rural areas.
Women in high-income countries spend 20 to 30 minutes a day on laundry. Women in low-income countries spend 80 to 90 minutes, every day, for life. Globally, 42% of working-age women are excluded from the labour force by unpaid care work.
Flora puts the same point to people in her own industry who do not think this is a problem worth solving.
"Have you ever spoken to a woman about this? Have you asked someone in a refugee camp how they feel when they wash clothes? Have you ever reflected on the privilege that you have to not have to do that?"
Flora Edmiston
Partnerships Manager, The Washing Machine Project
Standard electric washing machines have not closed the gap. Ownership sits below 30% in countries like India, Indonesia and Pakistan, because an electric machine asks for three things at once: a high upfront cost, reliable power and piped water. Where any one is missing, the machine is not a cost effective or even a practical solution. It is a liability.
How the Divya manual washing machine works
There is no motor, no circuit board and nothing that cannot be replaced from a local market.
- Open the drum hatch and load 5 to 7kg of laundry, roughly 20 to 25 garments.
- Add water and a small amount of detergent. A full cycle uses around 30 litres, roughly half what hand washing the same load takes.
- Leave the clothes to soak while the detergent breaks down dirt.
- Turn the handle for about two minutes to spin the drum, agitating the clothes through the water much as a conventional machine would.
- Rest and spin again, a few times over.
- Drain through the tap at the front, add fresh water and rinse.
- Hang the clothes to dry.
Start to finish, it takes around half an hour, of which the user is actually turning the handle for about six minutes. Against hand washing the same load that is 75% of the time saved.
The machine is designed to come apart. Nav demonstrated it by pointing out how the drum and the frame were designed for quick and simple assembly, and disassembly when repairs or maintenance is required.
"It's really simple stuff. Six bolts keep the whole machine together, and six bolts on the other side. Once you take this apart, the whole machine falls apart."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
Crucially, their machine was built to flat pack. It's intended to be serviceable, necessitating the use of only two tools and it is sized for the people who use it. Flora is five foot two, which is roughly the average height of the women TWMP works with and the machine is designed to be operated both when standing or sitting down.
Designing for the places where repairs need to be simple
Around 2022, TWMP were asked to supply machines to a school in Uganda so remote that the last leg of the journey is by boat across Lake Victoria.
"Seeing our machines being built in the UK with Accu components, then being boxed up, put on that boat, going onto Lake Victoria and finally delivering those machines. It's a goosebump experience."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
Nothing concentrates design priorities quite like watching your product cross open water in a fishing boat. Getting replacement parts to a location like that is extremely difficult and performing a repair there is harder still. If a machine was damaged, the realistic outcome was that it simply stopped being used.
Nav has seen what that looks like at scale. Travelling through Puebla and Chiapas in Mexico, distributing machines, he kept passing cheap semi-automatic washing machines lying discarded outside homes. They were broken, had a repair cost higher than the owners could justify and no local parts existed to be able to conduct satisfactory repairs.
"We saw piles of broken electric washing machines that were discarded because they couldn't afford to fix them. You just think, why? Why such a waste?"
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
That question is the design brief. Where a component cannot be replaced, a failure does not mean a repair. It means the product is abandoned and a machine built to reduce someone's burden becomes waste instead. So the Divya Manual Washing Machine is specified around parts that are available worldwide and the machine is built to be fixed by the very people who are using it every day.
It gets tested in ways a specification does not anticipate. In Uganda, a goat ate the tap. The replacement was found in the local market and was quickly and easily repaired because the machine had been designed from the outset around parts their owners actually get hold of.
Earlier versions taught the rest. Wooden stands warped and broke. Heavy plastics were awkward to ship and hard to repair. The current model is built around a robust metal frame, easier to transport and easier to fix locally with common tools. Which brings the whole problem down to the joints.
Where Accu components do the work
The Washing Machine Project have been buying engineering components such as screws, nuts, bolts and washers from Accu for about six years, which is as long as they have been manufacturing the Divya Manual Washing Machine.
What they really needed from a supply chain partner at the start was speed, the freedom to order in low volumes and the ability to ramp up to higher volumes as and when the work demanded. Plus, any fasteners they specified in the build needed to be standard enough to be used anywhere in the world.
What the application actually demands
A hand-cranked drum full of wet laundry is a cyclic load applied thousands of times, in a machine that spends its life directly interacting with water and detergent, operating in ambient temperatures that reach 40 to 50 degrees and which needs to be moved regularly between sites.
Vicky Whiting, one of TWMP's design engineers, is specific about what that rules out.
"Because it's a washing machine, it's in contact with water, in contact with detergent and chemicals. All of the fasteners need to be stainless steel."
Vicky Whiting
Design Engineer, The Washing Machine Project
And she highlights the considerations TWMP's engineers needed to make to prevent failure over the lifespan of the machines:
"There's a lot of rotation, there's a lot of vibration, both in shipping and in use. So we need to know that all of these bolts are tight and that they stay tight. Particularly the ones compressing the seal, if they come loose then you risk it leaking. We have to make sure that everything stays tight over those ten years of life."
Vicky Whiting
Design Engineer, The Washing Machine Project
That's the whole design consideration summed up in a few sentences. A fastener backing off under vibration does not just loosen a joint, it relaxes a seal and a washing machine that leaks in a household with rationed water is a machine that stops being used.
To further protect against this issue, TWMP have begun using Accu's range of fasteners with a pre-applied thread lock patch, which helps to provide extra resistance to self-loosening through vibration.
Standard components, so anyone can build the machine
The Divya Manual Washing Machine is designed to be assembled by The Washing Machine Project's volunteers and their end users alike, most of whom are not engineers. Vicky and the team have travelled to many countries, teaching people from a range of backgrounds how to build, use and repair their machines.
"It means that we have to have components that are readily available, easy to use, and we can monitor over the course of the day that everyone's put the right screws in the right places and that it's not going to fall apart once it gets into the field."
Vicky Whiting
Design Engineer, The Washing Machine Project
Standardising on one supplier has made the builds more consistent. It reduces variability in assembly and makes manufacturing outcomes more predictable, which matters when the people doing the assembly change every time.
The same logic extends to the field. Because the vast majority of the fasteners used in the machine are standard metric, the tools needed to maintain and repair a machine in rural Democratic Republic of Congo, in Mexico, India, or anywhere else a machine ends up, are tools people already have.
The Shakeproof Washer story
In machines destined for the Indian market, users reported back to TWMP that fine clothes, such as sarees, were catching on the existing locking washer fitted inside the machine's drum.
To combat this issue, TWMP trialled a shakeproof washer from Accu quickly and it both improved durability and made the machine better suited to that context. A small part, swapped fast following a short conversation with Accu's engineers, stops a machine snagging someone's clothes 5,000 miles away. A simple and effective solution all designed around the end user's satisfaction.
This is just one of the many examples where TWMP's lean supply chain and agile approach to innovating their own product really shines through, ensuring they're quickly capable of improving the next model's design, directly based on user feedback.
Design support, CAD and speed
This approach, of trial and improvement and standardising which components go into future model builds, is something The Washing Machine Project has enjoyed through their six years of choosing Accu as their primary supply chain partner for engineering components.
"There were times where we didn't know what we wanted. We consulted the engineers at Accu to see what we could design. I remember quite vividly speaking to people at Accu to see what lengths and what sizes of screws and bolts we could get, which was really, really helpful for us."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
Beyond that, Accu's online specifications, engineering drawings and CAD models drop straight into TWMP's design workflow and volume-based pricing visibility informs decisions while the design is still cheap to change. Next-day fulfilment on low-volume orders is what lets a small team test an idea in days rather than weeks.
The same machine, built on two continents
TWMP have been building in the UK for six years. For the last four they have also been building in the United States, in partnership with the Whirlpool Foundation, on a dedicated assembly line in Michigan.
Scaling a machine across two continents usually means rebuilding the supply chain on the other side of it. Different suppliers, different parts, a redesign to suit what is locally available and a second set of completely different components that no end user has previously tested. TWMP avoided all of these hurdles.
"When we were putting our bill of materials together for the Whirlpool Foundation builds in Michigan, we put Accu links to all of our screws, bolts and other small components."
"We didn't want to move away from anything that wasn't Accu. Then the buyers over there were able to source those parts very easily. Having that consistency across the UK and US was a massive relief for us."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
There was a specific obstacle in the way of that and it is one most British engineers discover the hard way.
"We've had to get metric components in the US, which are strangely few and far between. Thankfully, Accu does supply them and that's been really helpful for us. It means we haven't had to change the design when we've moved to building it in the US."
Vicky Whiting
Design Engineer, The Washing Machine Project
The US runs on imperial. A British product that crosses the Atlantic usually has to be redrawn around what American distributors stock, or the team has to accept parts they have not validated. For the Divya machines being built in Michigan, TWMP were able to use the exact same components already tested on the UK builds in Bristol, at the quantities and lead times the line needs, with no drawing changes and no revalidation.
What that buys, in practice, is consistent and scalable throughput. A UK volunteer build runs in pairs, each pair taking one machine from start to finish and a full day produces about five machines. The Michigan line, which has a greater number of people dedicated to the higher volume of builds, produces one in a matter of minutes.
Built with, not just for: Côte d'Ivoire
In partnership with the Chocolonely Foundation, TWMP is distributing 90 Divya machines to cocoa cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire, cooperatives that supply cocoa to Tony's Chocolonely. Up to 1,400 people will benefit. Eighty of the 90 will be assembled on site, by members of the cooperatives themselves.
It is the first time the machines will be built with the people who will use them. Assembling close to the end user improves distribution efficiency, but it also transfers the skills needed to maintain the machine to the community, and specifically to women. A machine you helped build is a machine you can fix.
Which puts an unusual amount of weight on the contents of a box several thousand miles away.
The Washing Machine Project have shipped out kits of parts and spares, in the right quantities and the right packaging sizes, so that farmers assembling a machine several thousand miles from the nearest TWMP engineer have everything the build needs and everything its ten years will need afterwards.
What reclaimed time actually buys
In Kampala, Uganda, a wash that took 147 minutes by hand takes 29 minutes with a Divya Manual Washing Machine. An 80% reduction. Across a week, 20 hours of hand washing becomes about five.
"What would you do with 15 hours? 15 hours is a phenomenal amount of time."
"We've asked this question to loads of people around the world. People would say that they would sleep, spend time with family, rest, go to school, work."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
Work
In Uganda, three women were washing clothes by hand for a living and wanted to turn it into a business. The Washing Machine Project built the infrastructure, rainwater harvesting included, and supplied a single Divya Manual Washing Machine to get them started.
"What we found in the first report was that these women were earning three times more than they usually earned the month before, and they were using that money to put their kids through school."
"These kids are now going through school for the first time ever."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
It worked. This success led to two more machines being given to them and the group tripled their income. Faster washing and the capacity to handle heavier items took them from 7 to 10 clients a week to 13 to 17.
Alongside the machines, The Washing Machine Project's partners on the ground, InPact Uganda, provided financial and business training funded through a TWMP grant. The Namavundu Women's Group is now the Namavundu Laundrette and Skilling Centre.
Study
In lower-income countries across the world, manual laundry often falls to children and young girls, causing them to arrive at school late, have to leave early to support their families or miss out on their education entirely.
At Shangilia School in Kenya, wash time dropped from 69 minutes to 35 minutes per load, and students used the recovered evenings for reading, skills and, a detail worth keeping, chess and football.
In Uganda, Salma used her machine to wash her neighbours' clothes for an income, which helped support her through her education.
Rest
In the Lesvos refugee camp, the most common answer to what people would do with the time was simply: rest. Across pilot sites in Uganda and Kenya, less washing time meant less fatigue, less back and hand pain, and less stress about managing limited water.
One TWMP programme in South India found that 47.5% of machine users reported a complete cessation of pain when washing clothes.
Money that was being spent on soap
Because the machine washes more per load, households wash less often and use less detergent. In Uganda, the team measured monthly soap spending falling by between two thirds and three quarters for some households. For someone on a very low income, that is a significant saving that nobody had thought to look for.
The water figures vary more than the headline suggests. The target is a 50% reduction, but in settings where hand washing was using very large volumes the drop is far steeper. In Mexico, research found households getting through 200 to 300 litres per wash, carrying soap, microplastics and pollution into the ground with it.
And sometimes, who does the washing
The Washing Machine Project team acknowledge that their evidence so far is observational, but a pattern seems to be emerging.
In the Republic of Congo, one woman noted that thanks to the Divya Manual Washing Machine her husband now also does the laundry.
In Lesvos, men often handled the heavier cranking while women sorted clothes.
In Zinacantán, Mexico, Juan, a steel worker, used the machine in the evenings when hand washing was too cold. He became a key community user and went on to help refine the instructions and train others.
To date the Divya Manual Washing Machine has reached 105,000 people. The goal is to make a life-changing impact to so many more.
"This washing machine will change the lives of a million people by 2030."
Flora Edmiston
Partnerships Manager, The Washing Machine Project
Why this is Engineering, where it really makes a difference
It is tempting to file humanitarian work somewhere outside the engineering profession. Vicky Whiting came to TWMP from big-company engineering and puts it the other way round.
"Engineering is so about problem solving and there are so many problems in the world that we don't see."
"Things like hand washing clothes in rural India, Africa, South America, Central America. I've worked for other companies, for big companies and to be able to use those skills to come in and solve problems that really matter was something I really wanted to do."
Vicky Whiting
Design Engineer, The Washing Machine Project
Accu exists to help engineers and innovators like, Nav and Vicky, bring ideas to life: through projects that impact billions of lives.
The Divya Manual Washing Machine is one of the clearest versions of that we've ever seen: an affordable machine where the smallest components decide whether it works for ten years or two. A truly innovative product, built by a team that strives to improve them, rigorously testing it to prevent failure in the field, on two continents and all from the same box of components.
"These small components are the things that make the machine work."
Navjot Sawhney
Founder, The Washing Machine Project
We spent a day with The Washing Machine Project to learn how their innovative manual washing machine is built, who builds it and where it goes. You can read The Washing Machine Project's user stories, in their own words, at thewashingmachineproject.org/user-stories.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Is Divya?
Divya was Navjot Sawhney's neighbour in southern India, who washed her clothes by hand because she had no electricity or running water. He promised to build her a washing machine. The Divya Manual Washing Machine is named after her.
What Is The Divya Manual Washing Machine?
A manual, off-grid washing machine for households and communities without reliable electricity or piped water. It holds 5 to 7kg of laundry, uses around 30 litres of water per wash and is operated by hand.
How Much Time Does It Save Compared To Hand Washing?
Around 75%. A 7kg load that takes roughly two and a half hours by hand takes around half an hour with the Divya Manual Washing Machine, of which only about six minutes is active turning.
Which Accu Components Are Used In The Machine?
All fasteners and fixings in the UK-spec machines are supplied by Accu, with the majority of components in the US builds also coming from Accu. All of them are metric stainless steel, specified for corrosion resistance, load strength, consistent tolerances and manufacturing repeatability.
Why Does The Same Machine Get Built In Two Countries?
The Washing Machine Project build in the UK and, since 2022, in Michigan with the Whirlpool Foundation. Because Accu supplies metric stainless steel in both markets, the US line runs on the same tested components as the UK one, with no design changes.
Why Do Fasteners Matter So Much In Humanitarian Engineering?
Because replacement is often impossible. In remote or resource-scarce settings a failed component usually cannot be sourced, so the whole product is abandoned. Reliable fasteners keep joints secure under cyclic loading and vibration, keep seals compressed, and minimise the maintenance that is hardest to deliver in the field.
How Long Is The Divya Manual Washing Machine Designed To Last?
Ten years, across diverse and often harsh environmental conditions.
How Can I Support The Washing Machine Project?
The Washing Machine Project is always looking for new partners, organisations that want to join their network and help them make more impact. Find out how you can get involved at thewashingmachineproject.org/becomeapartner.
