Design and Performance Evaluation of Semi-Automatic Fish Cutting Machine for Industry

Abstract

A half-cutting fish cutting machine was designed, fabricated and evaluated for performance. The major components of the machine were made up of three main parts: mainframe (case), conveyor/rotator and cutter component. The conveyor and disc cutter are powered by a single phase, 1400rpm and 1hp electric motor. Analysis on size (length, width, depth) of fish, size of disc cutter and gap of roller at the cutter component had been made. The performance of the machine was evaluated using 5 types of major fish that used for salted fish industry. The results showed that this machine can produced 5 times more productivities compared to existing (manual) method. From the analysis data, the machine can produce an average of 21 fish/minute, so the average time to half-cutting 1000 fishes is 47 minutes. More energy saving and less labor needed for fish cutting process. Also, 81.2% significant time saving were obtained from this machine. This new innovation is an alternative choice to existing heavy-duty machines in the market with more expensive cost.