Increasing Production Efficiency using Karakuri Principle (A Case Study in Small and Medium Enterprise)

The number of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) in food processing is increasing. It achieves about 70% from the total businesses established in Indonesia. One of the SME produce wingko, a traditional snack from East Java region which made from coconut, glutinous rice flour, and sugar. The process of making wingko consists of mixing, pouring, baking and packaging that mostly done manually by one or two operators. Through an analysis of the existing condition of the production process, it can be concluded that automation could be achieved with the oven machine, supported by conveyor that utilizes the karakuri kaizen method. This study proposes an integration design of material handling and baking machine that appropriate to be implied in the SME. Furthermore, calculation of indicators to measure the successfulness of the automation implementation is also conducted. The new system performs a significant improvement. This machine reduced the cycle time around 39%, especially in mixing and baking process. The manufacturing lead time is decreased about 55 minutes, while the production capacity is increased to 7 units per hour.