Ergonomic Evaluation on Chicken Feeder Tool at Egg-Laying Chicken Farm SME

Abstract

This research aimed to evaluate the chicken feeder tool that was designed for small and medium enterprise (SME) of egg-laying chicken farm. The main reason of this tool design was due to the worker’s complain of feeling pain during the feeding process. The evaluation was performed based on Nordic Body Map questionnaire result, physiological workload, and NIOSH lifting equation calculation. The observed work ranged from the feed filling in the basket until all feeds were distributed. The results showed that the %CVL was in the range of 18%-30% and the energy consumption of workers was in the range of 1.24-3.00 Kcal/minute. Thus, physiologically, the work activities carried out by the feed workers were categorized as very light workload. Meanwhile, evaluation using Lifting Index (LI) methods in the process of feeding showed the LI value ranged from 0.9-1, therefore this activity is safe to perform manually. Based on the prototype evaluation on the feeding aid, the process of feeding activities was more effective 1.5 times faster than the old tools. In addition, with the use of this new tool, the feeding process was easier to adjust the dose each time.