APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY FOR A BETTER SYSTEM

Evita Nuriya Rosada

2515 100 094
evita15@mhs.ie.its.ac.id

Introductions
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has already been started since January
early this year. There are many products and services that comes to Indonesia. To
make Indonesias economic not drowning because of the sea of products from
other country, Indonesia has been pursue small to medium enterprise growth
relentlessly. Nowadayas, small to medium enterprise become one of the most
important factor in the economy of Indonesia. It reduces unemployment because
of the work forces that is unasorbed by working world. It is proven to be strong
pillar for the economy of Indonesia. Eventough small to medium enterprise have
an important role like that, it still do not grow fast enough. The cause of that is
mainly because of technology. There is still little technology that is used by small
to medium enterprise in Indonesia. Some of them already use technology, but it
still does not really fit with them. So, the need of appropriate technology
becomes crucial for small to medium enterprise in Indonesia.
Appropriate technology is a grass root approach to technology that builds a
strong sense of community and encompasses benefits that span across social,
environmental, cultural, economic, and spiritual facets. Appropriate technology is
not a one size fits all approach, but rather adapts to best fit the community in
which it is developed. It is best fits with the community it serves because it is
created by people to meet a need. Therefore, the communities are placed at the
centre of decision making and create technologies that will best serve their
communities in the long term. To make technologies that serve the communities
in the long term, they need to think long and hard about the availability, viability
and durability of the technology they chooses.
Appropriate technology is important due to its holistic nature. First, it
permits local needs to be met more effectively through community involvement,
and for this reason it tends to be aligned with local values and traditions. Second,
appropriate technology utilizes human labour by developing tools rather than
machines. This enables people to self-organize without complicated management
training and specialized knowledge. Third, it minimizes transport of goods in an
era of expensive and environmentally harmful energy, allowing greater local
industry participation and implementation of local resources, both human and
material. Fourth, appropriate technology reinforces local control which provides a
cushion against the effects of outside economic changes. Finally, it establishes a
self-sustaining skillbase and reduces economic, social and political dependency
between individuals, regions and nations. Appropriate technology recognizes the
will of local people to act on their own behalf, and is a technology made by and
for the people.
Diwan and Dennis (1979) consider appropriate technology as an integral
part of the alternative development strategy. They say, the term, "Appropriate
Technology" (AT) is often used to describe the technological hardware and social
software best matched to Alternative Development Strategy (ADS) and to local
conditions in developing countries. At present there is no consensus about the
term "Appropriate Technology". However it is clearly recognized by its various

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characteristics. In terms of material aspects of appropriate technology
production, "appropriateness" connotes the use of renewable sources of energy
and recyclable materials, minimum destructive impact on the environment and
maximum utilization of local resources. In terms of application, appropriate
technology connotes assimilation with local environmental and cultural
condtions. It does not overwhelm the community but is comprehensible,
accessible and easy to maintain. Other phrases often used to describe
appropriate technology are technology that is intermediate (lying in scale of
sophistication between primitive and large scale, contemporary technology),
biotechnics (modelled on natural energy flows, maximizing thermodynamic
efficiencies), soft (harmonious with the environment), and low cost (regarding
price of inputs and products and investment per work place).
It is stated that technology is really important. But, creating technology is
not simple. When designing a technology project, there are any number of
questions that organisations should be asking. First, is this technology locally
available and currently being used by people on the ground? This will often vary
greatly depending on which community or group they are trying to reach.
Lawyers in Nigeria and smallholder farmers in Uganda, for example, may be
using very different kinds of technology. Second, do people have the necessary
literacy to be able to use and understand this system? In countries or
communities with low literacy levels, it may well be that a voice-based system is
more appropriate. Third, do people have sufficient economic resources to be able
to access the technology? Telecoms companies in different countries will often
charge very different rates for their services and whats affordable in one country
might be prohibitively expensive in another. Fourth, is the necessary
infrastructure in place? The availability and reliability of fast internet or a
continuous source of electricity, for example, can be crucial to the success or
failure of a project. Fourth, if it breaks down, who will fix it? Because technology
that is familiar, widely available and locally relevant will often be easier to fix if
they develop a fault. If imported or otherwise novel pieces of technology break
down, there may not be sufficient local people who know how to fix them. Finally
and most importantly, is this a problem for which technology is part of an
appropriate solution? In some instances, technology will simply not be the right
option (either because it is not widely used or available or because the problem
that are tried to tackle requires an answer other than technology). The questions
that is already stated is not intended as an exhaustive list, it is only an illustration
of the kinds of questions that occur to us when we are considering whether or not
an organisation is using appropriate technology.
As mentioned in the paragraph above, appropriate technology is important
and Indonesia also feel the importance of it. Since some time ago, Indonesia has
already been started to make some appropriate technology. The example of
appropriate technology that is used in Indonesia is tractor. Tractor gives a big
benefit for farmer. This technology is applied in Indonesia because most of
Indonesias people is farmers. Before tractor is found, farmers used to cultivate
the land by relying on the power of cow or buffalo to hoeing and plowing the
paddy field. Other than tractor, the technology that is used in Indonesia is
hydraulic ram pump or hidram pump. Ram pump is an energy-saving pump. This
pump does not use fuel oil and gas. Ram pump is also an eco-friendly machine
because it does not cause environmental pollution. Ram pump works by utilizing
the energy of water or usually called water hammer. Ram pump is suitable for
use in the mountainus region and in the hilly countryside. The area in Indonesia

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that has been using hydraulic ram pump is Puncak, Jawa Barat. Most of the villa
in Puncak uses this pump to pump water.
There are many small to medium enterprise in Indonesia, but only few of
them use appropriate technology. Because of that matter, Indonesia starts to
search many innovation for the creation of appropriate technology. The data of
Global Innovation Index shows that Indonesia is including a country that have
acceleration of innovation in appropriate technology. In 2013, the acceleration of
innovation in appropriate technology in Indonesia is already on 31 st place out of
144 country. While on the technology level itself is only on 77 th place out of 144
country that is surveyed. So, there is a big hope that those innovation can
advance the appropriate technology in Indonesia to another level. Based on
Director General of Development and Rural Community Empowerment, Erani
Yustika, there are two main problem in the process of the development of
innovation of appropriate technology that needs to be done fast. The first
problem is technology have not become a main issue in Indonesia. It is proven
from the budgets for research and development that is low. The second problem
is located in the business environtment in Indonesia. In other country, the
invention of technology get a lot support from private parties, that is business
world. While in Indonesia, research and innovation get more support from
government.
Corn is one of the ingredient that can be processed into many kind of foods
that can be seen in society. It can be fried, boiled, and stemed. It also has many
benefits, such as the source of carbohydrate, good for digestion, prevents stroke,
good for diet, lowering the colestrol,etc. It is an ingredient that is popular to be
processed for small to medium enterprise. Ngancar, Kediri, located near Kelud
mountain. The soil is really fertile and the field is also well maintained. So, it can
produce abundant crops. One of the crop that is produced in Ngancar is corn.
Many of small to medium enterprise there process corn into something with a
greater value. Similar to Ngancar, there is also a small to medium technology in
Surabaya named Samara Mart. It sells beverage that is processed from corn into
corn essence named Kormil. Kormil is an innovation of product that is created by
Hanif Syauqi since 2010. The main ingredient to make Kormil is corn starch. The
process of making Kormil in Samara Mart is really simple and currently it only
use simple technology. It only needs knife, high pressure stove and LSTS(Low
Speed Technology System) grinding machine. The first step of the making
process of Kormil is peeling the cornhusk manually by hand.

Figure 1 Cornhusk peeling manualy by hand

The second step is peel the corn kernels using a knife.

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 Figure 2 Corn sheller process using knife

The third step is cook the corn in high pressure stove.

Figure 3 Cooking process using high pressure stove

After the corn is cooked, the fouth step is grind the corn in LSTS grinding
machine until iis smooth enough like an essence.

Figure 4 Grinding process using LTS Grinding Machine

The last step is pour the corn to bottles by hand one by one. Then the Kormil is
ready for sell.

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 Figure 5 Packing to the bottle manually

Contents
Appropriate technology is really important for a business. It can help a
business improves in many ways. But, as explained above, the technology that is
used for the making process of Kormil is really simple. The technology that is
used is only high pressure stove and LSTS griding machine. So, no wonder if the
production of Kormil have difficulties to improve. The making process of Kormil
have many weakness. First, as mentioned in the process above, the production
process done manually (starts from the cornhusk peeling, corn sheller, cooking,
grinding, filling, and packing). Because the process done manually, the
production process is relatively long. With a long production process, it is hard to
meet a high demand from the market. The LSTS grinding machine also has
limited capacity for household scale. Other than that, after seeing the production
process, there is some problems in the use of regulator in the high pressure
stove. The difficulties are afer used for a long time, the pressure of the high
pressure stove starts to lower (unstable) so it affects the flame. The continuous
use of high pressure stoves only effective for more or less than 3,5 hours. The
stove also does not accompanied by additional safety tools (safety lock) that is
used to attach the regulator valve perfectly, so gas prone wasted or the gas will
be wasteful if the valve is not fit perfectly. It also prone to causing fires. The stove
is also not automatic, so it can not close automatically if there is a leakage.
Because it is not automatic, the remaining gas, the magnitude of pressure and
the time for cooking that is needed until the gave run out can not be predicted.
So, there are many dangers in using the high pressure stove. It can even cause
an accident to the worker. Even tough the making process of Kormil have many
weakness, it also have its strength. The cost of the making process is low
because it is done manually.
Because the making process of Kormil have many weakness, there need to
be solutions for the problem. For the making process, because all of it done
manually, there needs to be an appropriate technology (for cornhusk peeling,
corn sheller, cooking, grinding, filling, or packing). Then, change the LSTS
grinding machine or do some changes in the machine so that it can have a

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greater capacity. The high pressure stove also can be given a safety lock to
prevents the danger that it can use. If the owner wants to, he can also change
the high pressure stove into an automatic stove. Because it needs many changes,
the owner can just replace or add the machines gradually to limit the cost for
buying the machines. Even tough the strength of Kormil is the low cost in
production process, Kormil can spend more money for production process by
buying machines and the cost will be replaced later if the production can results
in greater product that can be sold.
In response for the need of appropriate technology for the making process
of Kormil, I have some innovation. Because the time that is needed for corn
peeling is not little, I want to create a corn peeling machine. The peeling machine
will consist of four parts. The firs part is a big hole to enter the corn into the
machine. The hole needs to be big enough so that many corn can be inserted at
once. The second part is the cutter. The cutter is located inside the machine to
make it safe. The cutter will peel the cornhusk. The third part is the hole for the
waste of the cornhusk that is peelede to exit the machine. And finally the fourth
part is the hole for the peeled corn to exit the machine.
Other than corn peeling machine, I have other innovations. My innovation
is to use induction stove that is equipped with timer. Induction stove create
electromagnetic reaction between a pot with induction cooking zone. Induction
stove use electricity, so there will not be any danger that can be caused by high
pressure stove. The induction stove have a precise temperature, so the corn can
be cooked consistenly. The timer that is on the induction stove is used to
automatically turn off the stove at a certain time, so there is no worries that the
corn can be burned.

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The sketch for corn peeling machine and induction stove that is equipeed with
timer is below.

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Conclusion
Appropriate technology is a grass root approach to technology that builds a
strong sense of community and encompasses benefits that span across social,
environmental, cultural, economic, and spiritual facets. It is best fits with the
community it serves because it is created by people to meet a need. In
otherwords, appropriate technology is suitable for business entity especially for
small to medium enterprise like Kormil. In practice, Kormil only use a simple
technology and do all of the making process manually by hand. It is consuming
time, requires lot of energy and the technology that is used also can bring
danger. So, appropriate technology is needed to fix that condition. The example
of technology that can be used for that condition is corn peeling machine and
induction stove equipped with timer.
From the paragraph above, the importance of appropriate technology can
be felt. Appropriate technology is needed for renewal. It renew the existing
system or make a new system based on the need of community or person. By
using appropriate technology, the system can be more effective and efficient. It
can increase the production rate and make the production process easier and
safer. So, the development of appropriate technology needs to be done to make a
a technology that fit local community and can make the system better.

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References:
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