Ergonomics Redesign of the Effective Chopping Tool for Harvesting the Eucalyptus Plant

Abstract

Eucalyptus plant is a plant producing an essential oil. It is beneficial oil for fabricating the cosmetic and aroma therapy. In consequence, a quality of the oil is very substantial to ensure the quality of product. One of factor affecting it is the degree of purity of the oil. In the interest of producing the high purity, a good harvesting technique should be considered particularly with a design of the chopping tool. Preliminary study was found that the quality and number of the oil are still not able to reach the target by using the existing tool. Thus this is significant to improve the tool which is more effective and safer. The purpose of this study is to redesign the ergonomic and innovative chopping tool. TRIZ used to determine the inventive principles for producing the specific solutions or design on basis a contradiction between improving and worsening features. Fuzzy linguistic concept is implemented to specify the design attribute that is vague. Result of this study finds four specifications of a purposed design. They are sharp with specifications thickness of the tool at the tip is 0.2 cm and the base is 0.37 cm, then strong with specifications the gilding is done for 2.63 minutes with 1216°C temperature, and for durable is the use of "Per" Steel as the material, and for comfortability is the size of the handle that corresponds to the dimensions of the human hand namely the diameter of the handle is 3.25 cm, the length of the handle is 12 cm, the width of each contour of the fingers is 2 cm using silicon rubber material. Signed-rank test results in that the proposed design is valid specifically it is more comfortable, more powerful, sharper, and more durable by using the existing design.