Reverse Engineering to Design an Ergonomic Bio Briquette Packaging Machine

Abstract

Briquettes are solids that are produced through the process of compression and pressure application
and if burned will produce a small amount of smoke. Briquette production is carried out using a
hammer mill where the raw material for briquettes is charcoal which is then crushed into charcoal
granules. The packaging process is still done manually using a shovel to fill the 50kg sack and then
take it to the sewing machine. The worker's posture when using a shovel has a Rapid Entire Body
Assessment (REBA) score of 12 so it has a high work risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and
requires immediate improvement. The working environment at the company produces pollutants,
meaning that there is no capture container for the fall of charcoal grains from the hammer mill. Based
on the existing problems, a redesign of the existing machine is needed. The proposed machine was
designed using the Reverse Engineering method because the existing condition already uses the
machine then the existing machine is decomposed to find out the components and functions of the
existing machine to find alternative concepts. The ergonomic approach uses REBA and LBA to
determine changes in worker posture and the forces acting in the human spine. The DEM approach
was chosen to find out if the charcoal grains dropped from the hammer mill were successfully captured
and to find out the flow of the charcoal grains. The results of the proposed machine design have a
good impact on workers in the packaging process.