Automation in plant factory with labor-saving conveyance system

Abstract

Within current plant factories, it is inevitable for people to enter the cultivation rooms. Along with hygiene issues such as prevention from bacteria and contamination, safety consideration for working on the upper level of the shelves are required. Also the labor cost management directly connected with running costs is also an important yet difficult problem to solve. As one way to solve these problem areas such as, hygiene, employee safety, labor cost management, the automatic culture bed transportation system was evaluated. The automated transportation system designed for the contact with the cultivation environment integrates monitoring management with warehouse control system, remote system control, energy saving and cost reduction techniques with shuttle transportation robots driven by brushless motors (24 V). This fabricated system with respect to hygiene, employee safety, and labor cost management was found advantageous compared to conventional plant factories. If employees without automatic machines harvest 5000 plants per day, labor running costs will require 25 to 33 employees working one eight hour day, with a total working time of 200 to 264 h. Furthermore, 63-83 hours out of the total (200-264 hours) is transportation work (31%). The transportation work of 7.8 to 10.4 people out of the 25-33 working one eight h day on 5000 plants per day was witnessed to be automated.