Idea 247 of 500. Cluster 12: The gem chain, from Ratnapura to the certificate
Gem-cutting machinery service and repair, since every cutter's tools are imported
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
Every idea in cluster 12 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Interview 10 cutters in Ratnapura and Colombo about what machines they use, what breaks most often, how long they wait for a repair and what it costs them. Offer to fix one machine for a trial fee. The proof is a list of common faults, a price per repair and one cutter who pays.
- Who pays first
- A gem cutter who loses days of work when an imported machine breaks and has nobody nearby who can repair it.
- What leaves today
- Every cutter's tools and their servicing are imported, so machine downtime and repair fees drain value from the one step already done at home.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The sapphires in the island's inventory - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
Basel, Geneva and the Swiss gem bridge
More from cluster 12
- 236A gem laboratory in Colombo to the standard of the Swiss ones, with a foreign partner if it must, so the origin report is issued where the stone was mined
- 237Jewellery design studios employing the young designers who now leave for Bangkok and Dubai
- 238A Ratnapura mine visit sold as a day, with a licensed dealer and a laboratory report on anything you buy
- 239Gem-cutting apprenticeships, paid, with the graduates employed by the studios above
- 240A Ceylon sapphire brand for engagement rings, sold online to Sri Lankans abroad and beyond, with the stone's story traced from pit to finger
- 241Auction days in Colombo for the trade, with international buyers flown in, the way Geneva does it twice a year
Idea 247 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.