Design and Development of a Manual Pineapple Processing Machine Capable of Peeling, Coring and Slicing Pineapples for Small and Medium Enterprises

Pineapple processing involves peeling, coring and slicing of pineapple. A simple manual pineapple processing machine was developed to enhance the crude method of processing pineapple using just the knife and to reduce musculoskeletal problems associated with processing large quantity of pineapples with the knife. Hence, the objective of this paper is to design and develop a manual pineapple processing machine capable of peeling, coring and slicing pineapples to be utilized by small and medium enterprises (SME) using Response Surface Method (RSM) and validated using desirability plots. The results of actual and predicted response surface plots confirms pineapple sample weight 1.35 kg, diameter 60, height 110 mm with efficiency of 94.81% as the optimal variables. The desirability plot validated these results with response of 1.47, 0.17, 0.06, 0.22 kg weights of peeled, peel and core of pineapple removed, respectively, machine peeling efficiency at 87.29 % as optimal at 11 seconds. At these optimal conditions, the actual efficiency realized was 94.81 %. The differences within the actual and predicted valuations were lower and not significant statistically, which implied that selected model efficiently predicted the peeling efficiency of the machine. Center Composite Design Rotatable (CCDR) was employed to initiate 20 experimental processes.