BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Food is a necessity to our lives, in such a way that the way it is cultivated,
handled and processed is worthwhile to understand and improve. Being one of the largest
and oldest industry in almost every country, the level of competition has been consistent,
and resources are varied. The demand in the multinational food industry is often affected
by the population extent, wealth allocation, health awareness and diverse types of
lifestyles. Global population growth requires the development and improvement of
output. Food companies throughout the globe at this moment are experiencing
monumental issues and difficulties, not just small-scale businesses but as well as some of
the largest brands in the market.

The ever-increasing demand for ease and convenience has drove to the fast

progress and expansion of the Philippine food service industry in the structure and design

of fast-food restaurants and casual dining restaurants. The nation’s food product and

service industry has persisted and sustained to strengthen and advance over the last

couple of years due to the swift and rapid pace of lifestyle. Businesses of preparing food

are enhancing their network to satisfy more Filipinos who demand for more comfort and

accommodation. There between the industries, fast food chains hired the greatest possible

number of workers with 130,304 or 30.1% of the overall number. Internationally, chicken

fast food was the largest and major possible retail format in 2016, as stated by Stephen

Dutton, a user and purchaser food service associate in global market research agency

Euromonitor International.
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College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Being a primarily agricultural society, the Philippines is one of the multitude of

countries with a booming poultry industry, which is dominated by native chicken,

broilers, and egg layers.

The country’s innate passion and love for chicken, along with the nation’s rapidly

increasing population, income and demand for chicken, has made the industry a

profitable investment, despite the occasional threat of avian flu. To achieve success

within the food industry the firm must make continuous improvement and implement

cycle time reductions. Change is inevitable as the demand, resources and trends within

the trade of products and services make an impact to the forecasting of possible markets

and maintaining the satisfaction of customers. A business in order to survive and compete

to other must incorporate the importance of continuous improvement. Continuous

improvement is an infinite and unbounded process of enabling individuals and groups to

distinguish and locate inefficiencies or bottlenecks. Offers the researchers opportunity to

standardize processes or methods and lessen time, effort and wastes. Demands has

become increasingly almost unattainable to a company, impacted by the quest for more

advance and modified process in the manufacturing and processing of the raw materials

and speedy enhancement of the technologies.

 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Along with this growth lies a need for the continuous improvement of poultry
processing equipment used by processing plants around the country in order to keep up
with the demands of the market. To achieve success within the food industry the firm has
to make continuous improvement and implement cycle time reductions, whether be it a
small, family owned business or large, industrialized ones, every process involved in
poultry processing has been presented with methods and equipment on how to maximize
processing time, capacity and quality whilst keeping costs to reasonable levels. However,
there will be always be flaws to the system of production a firm uses which slows down
production and subsequently affects output numbers, appropriately called bottlenecks.

The theory of constraints states that a bottleneck is the one constraint that stands
in the way of achieving a goal and is defined as the “weakest link in the chain.”
Bottlenecks can be thought of as a toll gate or roadblock – it limits the amount of input
that can pass through, thus creating congestions on the entry side while leaving the exit
side relatively clear. It can also be defined as a point in any production system where
workload arrival is faster than the process. As a result, workloads accumulate on the
workstation, which causes the succeeding workstations to become idle and create delays,
which increases production time and costs and adds non-value-added work to the final
product. Bottlenecks exist in every system in varying forms like, but not limited to, the
following: management, people, material, equipment, process, policy, environment, etc.
Bottlenecks differ in every type of business, but methods of identification are identical.
Identifying and removing bottleneck/s are crucial to a business’ long-term success.

Methods engineering (book definition)

Time and motion study (book definition)

In food industry managing bottleneck have big defects in the food process.
Managing bottleneck is one of the most significant focus of managers worldwide, the
application is the in this study, because the bottleneck that was identified was a
crucial constraint of the process. The effect of managing the bottleneck is to increase
the efficiency of both workers and process to attain the target output.

Background of the study

 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Pearl Poultry Dressing and Meat Processing Corp. is a large business located at Brgy.

Tamak, Padre Garcia. They act as a supplier of marinated chicken for Bounty Agro

Ventures Corp. and other businesses within CALABARZON. The evisceration process

operates from Monday

evening to Sunday morning, usually from 8:30 pm until the last chicken crate is
finished. The company is slaughtering a high volume of chicken. Their target output must
range to 30,000-40,000 number of heads per production day.

Currently, the evisceration department’s rehanging section is encountering some

problems; an additional worker was added to speed up the rehanging while being on
standby for any chicken whose feet/head were not severed earlier and the current shackle
design allows room for improper hanging especially on peak hours and has slowly lost its
intended dimensions relative to chicken size, which makes the rehanging process more
tedious as the workers tend to miss the initial hang and either re-aim for the missed spot
or go to the next shackle. Furthermore, the missed/improper hangs build up quickly as
chickens fall from the previous section or return to the rehanging section (for chicken that
failed to fall from the conveyor to the next section due to improper hanging), the
rehanging table gets filled quickly which causes other workers within the evisceration
department, but is tasked to do something else, to assist the rehanging section in
rehanging the chicken, pushing the stuck chicken from the dropper in case the table gets
full, and picking up the chicken that falls from the table due to lack of space in the
rehanging table.

The researchers identified that there is a problem in one of the processes in

evisceration department. It is the dropping of chicken to rehanging process. Currently the
time it takes for ten chickens to drop from feet removal to rehanging is 7.65s, however,
this pace is too fast for the rehanging personnel, for the actual time for rehanging of
chicken is approximately 24.12 seconds per ten heads. Afterwards, the rehanged chickens
undergo vent opening, which takes 7.4 seconds per ten heads; this creates an obvious
buffer time between rehanging and vent opening.
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College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Statement of the problem

This study will focus in the modification of tools for working stations used in
evisceration department at Pearl Poultry Dressing and Meat Processing Corporation in
Barangay Tamak, Padre Garcia, Batangas. One of the problems of the company is the
manual operation on rehanging of chicken. It is considered as the bottleneck operation
that slows down. Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the requirements of the process line in terms of:

1.1 Manpower;

1.2 Equipment/Tool;

1.3 Capacity;

2. What is the current state of the process line in terms of:

2.1 Productivity;

2.2 Efficiency?

3. What are the common causes of buffer problems in the processing of chicken?

4. What improvements may be proposed to improve the process operators?

5. What is the effect of the proposed improvement in terms of:

4.1 Productivity;

4.2 Efficiency

Significance of the Study

This study will observe the production process at Pearl Poultry Dressing and Meat
Processing Corporation. The outcome of the study may help the management to satisfy
the output on evisceration department.
 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

This study may serve as a necessary guideline in evaluating the effectiveness of the
design and may also provide ideas and information that are intended to help in addressing
the delayed process existing in evisceration line in the company.

The researchers hope that the results of the study would be helpful and useful to the
following entities and group of individuals:

Company. This may provide ideas and information on improving the whole process
that may help increase the productivity, efficiency and the quality of the product.

Workers. The proposed equipment may help workers to work efficiently and provide
ease of operation for them to avoid unnecessary overtime.

Future Researchers. The study may also be useful basis and information for future
studies dealing with designing and modifying the device.

Industrial Engineering Department. This research may be intended as a good

opportunity and training ground to apply the knowledge of industrial engineering ideas.

Researchers. The study may serve as a reference guide to put in practice and apply
all the knowledge obtained from classrooms discussion.

Limited to evisceration process

Definition of Terms

The following main terms are presented and defined conceptually to further
understand the study.

Bottleneck - A bottleneck is a point of congestion in a production system (such as an

assembly line or a computer network) that occurs when workloads arrive too quickly for
the production process to handle.

Theory of constraints

Evisceration
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College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

Research Framework

Research framework is used to outline possible courses of action or to present a

preferred approach to an idea or thought. Research framework can act like maps that give
coherence to empirical inquiry.

The research paradigm of the study, as shown figure 1, it provides the input,
output and process of the study. The first box represents the input which shows the
OUTPUT

current production condition at evisceration department. The input serves as the basis on
what and where the study is focused. Knowledge requirement about the current
production situation is needed for further analysis of the problem.

The process components are represented by the second box which is composed of
the methods that the researches used to analyze the current production process.

workstation
Modifications of tools for
PROCESS
INPUT

Bottleneck Analysis
production
process and Efficiency
of chicken.
Evaluation of Current
 Current Production Situation:

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Engineering and Computing Sciences