A revisit motion analysis of lifting fresh fruit bunches during oil palm harvesting

Abstract

Malaysia still practice manual harvesting of oil palm by the workers which usually consume a lot of time. The workers’ performance in working quality can determine the good productivity of a plantation. The aim of this project is to study the motion analysis of lifting fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) manually performed by the different workers. In this research project, the workers were categorized into different BMI, underweight, normal weight or ideal weight and overweight to perform the lifting activities. There are three major different lifting activities, which are; lifting the FFBs from the ground to the small container (wheelbarrow), lift the FFBs from the small container (wheelbarrow) to the tractor and directly lift the FFBs to the tractor. Time-based motion analysis was produced at the end of the project so that the energy and power consumption of lifting FFBs activities can be examined. The fastest time for lifting ten FFBs from the ground to the wheelbarrow, from the wheelbarrow to the tractor and from the ground directly to the tractor are 16 s, 15 s and 19 s, respectively. The most energy consumption in lifting FFBs activity from the ground to the wheelbarrow, from the wheelbarrow to the tractor and from the ground directly to the tractor are 0.6666 kJ, 1.9630 kJ and 2.4721 kJ, respectively. The greatest power consumed in lifting ten FFBs from the ground to the wheelbarrow, from the wheelbarrow to the tractor and from the ground directly to the tractor are 0.0393kW, 0.1233kW and 0.1236 kW, respectively. The relationship between the palm oil plantation worker and the process of lifting the fresh fruit bunches have been analyzed by using statistical analysis and regression analysis. The hypothesis were all workers have different in time consumption and no different in energy and power consumption. Body mass index (BMI) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) of the palm oil worker have shown the significant factors that affected the performance in time consumption of the workers. Energy and power consumption of lifting FFBs activities not greatly affected by the BMI and BMR of the workers.