Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies Vol. 5, No.

1, March 2018

Design of Semi-automatic Plant Media Bagging

Machine for Container Plant Nursery
Dian Yulianto and Soranat Raibhu
Industrial Engineering Department, Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand
Email: {dianyulianto3093, s.rhaipu}@gmail.com

Abstract—Plant nursery is a prosperous business in Moreover, to sustain in today’s market competition,

Indonesia, high demand of ornamental plant leads this nursery is forced to produce plants in larger quantity and
business to keep expanding. As another agricultural better quality with shorter lead time.
business, a plant nursery is labor intensive business. Labor On the other hand, mechanization and automation have
problem such as increasing minimum wage, labor scarcity,
widely applied in agriculture sector, especially in
and low productivity becomes main issue in recent years.
Automation has been known as suitable solution for solving developed countries which human labor is scarce and
labor problems in manufacturing sector. Therefore, expensive. A survey of automation usage in 127 nurseries
implementing automation to assist nursery production at southern United States reveals that almost 70% of
might solve nursery labor problem. In this research a semi- respondents are implementing automation in their
automatic bagging machine is designed to reduce the labor production process [5]. Another research in automation
required and production lead time during re-planting implementation in nursery production process [6]-[8]
process. Observation and interview is conducted at one reported successfully improved the production process.
plant nursery for collecting user requirements. Collected Automation is widely used because it offers many
user requirements, then transformed to engineering
advantages such as increase productivity, reduce labor
specification using house of quality matrix. Machine
conceptual design is created by analyzing the current cost, reduce manufacturing lead time, improve product
practice of re-planting and identify the function with quality, and mitigate labor shortages [9]. Because of these
function structure diagram. Identified function, then advantages, implementing automation considered as a
inserted into the morphological matrix in order to generate feasible solution for solving the nursery labor problems.
possible solutions for automating the function. One concept Implementing automation only can’t solve all nursery
is selected to further develop into detail design. Selected problems, it needs to integrate with the whole production
machine concept is using compressed air to fill plant system. Moreover, several scholars consider that
container with media and compress the media. This automation is a complicate issue and requires large
machine is capable to reduce production lead time up to half
investment to develop and maintain [10]. In order to
of current production process by utilizing one operator.
 successfully implement automation the designer should
Index Terms—plant nursery, labor, automation, machine able to find, select, acquire, and properly implement the
design right type and level of automation in relation to the
company needs and goals [11].
In general, nursery production process can be
I. INTRODUCTION separated to four different process, namely propagation,
re-planting, growing and display. In this research,
Plant nursery is prospect business in Indonesia, the automation will implemented to re-planting process of
demand of one type of plant can reach up to 5 million container plant nursery in Indonesia. Re-planting is
trees annually [1]. Alike another agricultural business, selected to be automated because it requires lots of
plant nursery is a labor intensive business with energy if done manually, and similar approach can be
approximately 40 to 70 percent of nursery expense is applied for all nursery plants re-planting process.
spent on labor cost [2]. Because of its dependency to
human labor, nursery owner is facing various problems II. METHOD
such as increasing wages and limited production capacity.
According to Indonesia Central Bureau of Statistic, The design process is following product development
minimum wage in Indonesia is increasing 14% per year approach and considering the appropriate level of
in past six years [3]. Increasing wage is not compensated automation. Design procedure is explained as follows:
with the capability of labor in generating profit for
A. Identify User Requirements
nursery. Relying on manual work become inefficient
because humans have very limited mental and physical User requirements are the foundation of any machine
strength, once they reach fatigue limit, their performance design, good machine design cannot be made without
will decline and easily lead to make a mistake [4]. understanding the requirement. User requirements are
obtained from observing the present process and
interviewing the nursery owner. Good requirement should
Manuscript received July 22, 2017; revised November 6, 2017. represent the objective or requirement for a solution that

©2018 Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies 36

doi: 10.18178/joaat.5.1.36-40
 Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2018

technically achievable and unambiguous [12]. Identified These requirements then transformed into engineering
requirement, then transformed into engineering specification and ranked by using quality function
specifications by utilizing house of quality matrix. This diagram. Three most important engineering specifications
matrix can define product specifications to meet the user are used for representing the user requirements, those are:
requirement with at the same time paying attention to the number of operators, filling speed and machine cost.
competitor, and transform the user need into measurable
characteristics of product [13].
B. Generate Conceptual Design
Conceptual design generation begins with identifying
function by using function structure diagram. This
method is used because it can break the problem into
smaller function that need to perform by specific
component and extend the possibility of a feasible design
solution [14]. Identified task then inserted to a
morphological matrix to generate a conceptual design (a) (b)
solution. Morphological matrix is a very useful tool for
generating solution, it can generate numerous possible
solution by combining alternatives of performing each
task. Although this method is highly depends on designer
knowledge and creativity, this technique is very useful for
generating out of the box solutions [15]. The best concept
will chose from generated solution by considering the
user requirements, manufacturability, cost and
engineering feasibility [16].
C. Generate Detail Design (c) (d)

A selected concept, then developed into detail design

that provide information about shapes, forms, and
dimension of each individual component [17]. Finite
element analysis and failure mode and effect analysis are
used to evaluate the design. Finite element analysis is
used for calculating deformation, stress, and structural
dynamic using approximated geometries from cad model
[18]. Detail design development and evaluation are
conducted concurrently, design refinement is done for
(e) (f)
multiple times until it fulfil the engineering specification
and safety. Figure 1. Current practice of re-planting process

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION C. Conceptual Design Development

The function structure diagram of re-planting process
A. Present Re-planting Practice is presented in Fig. 2, identified function then inserted to
In the present process, two employees are assigned to morphological matrix. Possible solutions for each
do re-planting with daily productivity up to 350 trees. function is identified and listed in the matrix, there are no
The re-planting process (Fig. 1) begin with preparing the limitation of possible solution to be listed in the matrix.
plastic bag (a) and fill it with rice husk (b), then it must Identified possible solution for each function (Table I)
be compressed until dense by using wooden stick (c) then combined to create the machine concept. For
before the employee insert the plant seedling (d). Once example, the machine will use suction cups to open the
the seedling is inserted, the employee continues to fill the plastic bag then, fill and compress the plant media by
bag with rice husk until it’s full (e) and compress it again using screw conveyor. Because there are hundreds
until dense (f). Potted plant then placed in a cart for possible combination that can generated from the matrix,
transport to growing area, where the nursery grows the a time study is used to prioritize function that should be
plants until it reach saleable size. automate. Prioritizing function can reduce time required
B. User Requirements Identification for developing conceptual design and effectively allocate
available resources. Based on time study result, filling
After observing current re-planting process and discuss and compressing rice husk is the longest activity during
with the nursery owner several requirements are re-planting process (Fig. 3). Therefore, by focusing to
identified, these are: minimize the number of worker, fast automate this activity, nursery can significantly reduce
process, inexpensive, easy to use, low operation cost, the process lead time.
simple maintenance and safe for use by the operator.

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 Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2018

Plastic scoop Wooden stick

Plastic bag Plastic bag is

Plastic bag is Plant media is
filled with plant Plant seed
Human energy open compressed
media Human energy

Plant media
Human energy Human energy
Plastic scoop Wooden stick Plant seed is
inserted

Potted plant ready

Plastic bag is
for transport Potted plant is Plant media is Plant media
filled with plant
relocated compressed Human energy
media

Human energy Human energy

Process flow
Energy flow
Tools

Figure 2. Function structure diagram of current re-planting process

TABLE I. MORPHOLOGICAL MATRIX OF RE-PLANTING PROCESS FUNCTIONS

Possible Solutions
Open manual by hand Air blower Suction cups Container mold
Fall by gravity Push by screw conveyor Vibrating conveyor Belt conveyor
Pneumatic piston rod Hydraulic piston rod Screw conveyor Rotation press piston
Insert manually by hand Pneumatic seed gripper Fall by gravity
Conveyor belt Roller conveyor Slide by gravity Move manually

Figure 3. Re-planting process Pareto chart

Moreover, this activity doesn’t need a complex

thinking process makes it affordable for the nursery to
invest automation in it. After considering the feasibility Figure 4. Machine hopper
and capability in fulfilling the user requirement, one
concept is selected to perform re-planting process. The
machine concept will use gravity to fill the bag with plant
media and compress the media by using pneumatic piston
rod. The rest of functions are still done manually because
those processes requires complex automation system, but
only contribute a small portion of time reduction.
D. Detail Design Development
Selected concept is developed into a detail machine
design with machine specification as follows:
- Dimension : 1060 x 680 x 2280 mm
- Capacity : 100 bags/hour
- Power : 0.9 kW / 220 V
- Working air pressure : 6 bar
- Air consumption : 80 liter/minute Figure 5. Air blower

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 Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2018

The machine is equipped with hopper for store plant New workstation layout (Fig. 7) is proposed to fit with
media before it inserted to bag container. Designed designed machine. Machine operator is required to fill the
hopper (Fig. 4) can hold up to 250 liter of plant media, hopper with rice husk one sack at a time. After filling the
which can be used for filling 100 bags. At the hopper also rice husk, operator must open and attach the plastic bag to
installed an air blower (Fig. 5) to assist material flow, this press tube then press the start button. While waiting the
blower work by releasing high pressured air in form of machine work, operator can insert plant seedling into a
pulse (± 0.5 sec/pulse) to reduce friction between hopper hole that prepared during compressing the rice husk. The
plate and plant media. Therefore, plant media can plant seedling is propagated inside a tray to make it
transferred to the press tube by using gravity force. The uniform size and easier when inserted into the hole. After
air pulse will repeated every 5 second until the press tube plant seedling is planted, it placed on a larger container
is filled with enough plant media. box that use for transport the plants to next station. By
After falling from hopper, plant media will enter a implementing this machine, the nursery can reduce re-
compression tube (Fig. 6) that used for compressing plant planting process lead time up to 40 seconds per bags with
media up to certain density specified by the nursery. employing one operator only.
Besides increasing density, press tube also used to form a
hole for insert the plant seedling. Two pneumatic
cylinders are used for compress the plant media, one
located below the tube for lock and hold plant media
where another pneumatic cylinder compress the media
from above. The bottom cylinder is equipped with weight
sensor which used for weight plant media inside the bag
during filling process and monitor the compression force
by top cylinder.

Figure 7. Workstation design

IV. CONCLUSION
Automation is considered as a suitable solution for
solving labor problem in many industry. However, the
use of automation also widely practiced in agriculture,
Figure 6. Compression tube
especially in developed countries. In this research, semi-
automatic plant media bagging machine is designed for
During initial position, bottom cylinder is retracted assisting container plant nursery re-planting process.
allowing operator attach plastic bag to the press tube. Designed machine is use compressed air to fill and
Whereas the top cylinder is extruded, closing the plant compress plant media. Calculation result shows that
media channel from hopper. When activated, bottom designed machine is able to reduce re-planting lead time
cylinder will extrude locking plastic bag with press tube up to 50% of current practice with one employee to
then top cylinder will retracted allowing plant media to operate the machine.
enter the press tube. Air blower then activated to assist
the flow until weight sensor measure required weight and REFERENCES
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