Value Engineering of Coco Peat Product to Increase Productivity

Listiani Nurul Huda1 , A. Rahim Matondang 1 and Indra Nasution2

1
Department of Industrial Engineering, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Kampus USU, Medan City, Indonesia
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Kampus USU, Medan City, Indonesia

Keywords: Coco Peat, Productivity, Value Engineering, Ergonomics Design

Abstract: Coco peat is a scrap from the process of sweeping coco fiber and coco bristle fibers in the form of fine
granules. The selling value of coco peat block is more expensive compared to coco peat fine grain, hence
why value engineering is needed. In this paper the process of making the coco peat block press machine is
ergonomically described. Productivity of coco peat block fine grain and coco peat block will be compared.
The method used for ergonomic design uses anthropometric data and Rapid Entire Body Assessment
(REBA) analysis, while productivity measurement uses total productivity. The results obtained showed that
the design using anthropometric data of workers resulted in an improvement of 4 points of work posture
from conditions that needed to be improved to be safe. The total productivity of technological engineering
changes carried out shows an increase in index of around 0,41. There is an increase in selling value between
fine grain coco peat with 3 times coco peat block. These findings indicate that the procurement of press
machines that are ergonomically designed to add the value of coco peat is a viable solution to increase the
productivity of the company.

1 INTRODUCTION
Table 1: The selling price of the products.
Coconut is one of the most agricultural products has
many derivatives. Not only fro m the flesh of the No. Product Selling Price (Rp) / kg
fruit, even coconut husk which is classified as scrap 1 Coco Bristle 14,000
can be utilized as a product that is worth selling. The 2 Coco Fibre 2,700
derivative of coconut husk can be d ivided into three, 3 Coco Peat 600
namely coco fibre, coco bristle, and coco peat.
Coco peat has the lowest sales value. But if you
consider the ratio of the proportion of the quantity
produced by the coconut husk for each product,
where the coco fiber, coco bristle, and coco peat in a
row, namely 20%, 10% and 70%, then it would be
very unfortunate if the coco peat not utilized. Mainly
because of coco peat also has a good resale value
because it can be used as a fert ilizer and gro wing
med ia such as hydroponics, vegetables, also flowers
Figure 1: Industry Tree of coco peat and trees nursery.
Coco peat has a mild nature, it can absorb large
Coco fiber and coco bristle are fibers of coconut volumes of water, the acceptable pH, and have
husk which has been combed to separate from one oxygention propertieswhich make coco peat suitable
another (not sticking together). The g ranules as planting media for root growth (A wang, 2009).
resulting fro m the sweeping process is called coco Such properties make the coco peat to be one good
peat. The difference in selling price of these three alternative in lieu of the land, because the amount of
products are shown in Table 1. land is increasingly limited.

351
Huda, L., Matondang, A. and Nasution, I.
Value Engineering of Coco Peat Product to Increase Productivity.
DOI: 10.5220/0008554303510357
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Natural Resources and Technology (ICONART 2019), pages 351-357
ISBN: 978-989-758-404-6
Copyright c 2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
ICONART 2019 - International Conference on Natural Resources and Technology

The compny that become the object of study has that users want while achieving the target set fee.
a production capacity of 4,500 kg per day. Coco Value engineering is widely used in target costing,
peat, packed into 30 kg sacks, deposited into the product design and / or development, quality control,
warehouse and sold to the local market for Rp etc. In this research, value engineering done for
18,000 per sack. Process undertaken to acquired product development. Value added activities carried
coco peat products, namely: out by changing the shape of the packaging of bulk
1. Co mbing: Coconut coir parsed using a machine into blocks which have a higher selling value, at Rp
to separate Crasher coco fibers and CCO bristle 23,000 / 10kg. Cost engineering is done on
fiber and coco peat granules. designing products by considering the option
2. Sieving: Beads of coco peat granules then ofbuilding a new machine design with ergonomic
filtered three times with sifting mach ine to obtain principles or buy the machine available in the
fine g ranules according to the s tandard of the market.
company. Value addition of coco peat bulk into blocks can
3. Packaging: Siev ing results then packed into 30 be done with the procurement of a press mach ine.
kg sacks sized manually by workers. Thus in this study will be a co mparison of
Sales of coco peat in bulk fo rm is the simp lest productivity of sales coco peat with a bulk form and
way of selling. Generally coco peat is sold in the block. They will also do a co mparison of
form of blocks, especially fo r countries that are more productivity between the use of the press machine
developed in their agribussiness like India, Europe, individually designed with ergonomic considerations
and America. The b lock form is easier to handle in with engines purchased from the market.
terms of transportation because it has a smaller
volume than the bulk form.
2 METHODS
Stages of the research conducted in this study
include the ergonomic design of the press mach ine,
productivity calculations, and the analysis of the
value added.
Manually packing Method is analyzed by using
Rapid Ent ire Body Assessment (REBA) to look at
risk due to work postures that are not good. This
(a) method is chosen because the workers use almost
entire body part to work. Then the machine will be
designed with consideration of workers
anthropometry so that in addition to having better
productivity, health and work co mfort is also
obtained in the presence of the press machine.
Productivity calculation method used in this
study is total productivity. This method compares
the magnitude of the overall output of the input
used. Input factors are taken into account include
labour, materials, capital, energy, and others while
the output factor is the revenue earned from the sale
(b) (Sinulingga, 2014). Productivity on the conditions
before and after value engineering is compared to
see which options are most profitable productivity.
Figure 2: (a) Coco peat bulk in sacks (b) Coco peat The formula used to calculate the total productivity,
pressed into block. namely:

Total productivity = Output / Input (1)

Value engineering (VE) is an organized effort to
analyze the function of the product or service so that An option with the best productivity index is
the company can find a way of generating the submittedas the best proposal of this study. To find
required functionality of the essential characteristics out how much value is actually done in the

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 Value Engineering of Coco Peat Product to Increase Productivity

engineering of this value then the calculat ion of

added value is done. This calculation is performed in
a way to calculate the necessary costs (materials,
labour, packaging, depreciation, etc.) to make one
kilo of product. Then the value of the product sales
will be reduced by the value of the production cost.
The result of these reductions is actual profit earned
by the manufacturer.
Calculation of profit per kilo product is done for
the condition before and after engineering. Then the
difference of thevalue of the two is the added value
that has been done. The larger the value, the better
the added value that has been done.

Figure 4: REBA sheet assessment before value

engineering.
3 RESULTS
Theresults of the collected anthropometric data
3.1 Ergonomic Design Press Machine are then processed statistically by calculat ing the
average, standard deviation, and uniformity test.
Packaging method performed before the value
Then the dimensions used is the 95th percentile
engineering is manually done by workers. Activity
results in accordance with the principle of upper
of manual packaging is done by using a shovel to
extreme.
move the coco peat located on the production floor
The costs necessary to make the press mach ine is
into the sack.
shown in Table 2.

25
Table 2: Cost of each component machine press.
60
95 No. Component Unit price Quantity Total Price
(Rp 000) (Unit) (Rp 000)
Iron Plate
1 8,750 / m 15 8.242
50
15 8-10 mm
Iron Plate
2 8,750 / m 15 16.485
10 12-20 mm
diesel
3 4.770 / unit 1 4.770
engines
hydraulic
4 Valve 123 / unit 1 123
hydraulic
5 950 / unit 1 950
Pump
Figure 3: M ethod of manual packaging. Working
6 9,000 / unit 1 9,000
cylinder
o 7 oil Filter 428 / unit 1 428
Figure 3 shows that the worker bent to 95
repeatedly for a long time. The manual method is Total 39.998
then analyzed posture using REBA method (see
Figure 4). REBA assessment results show the value The costs in Table 2 was obtained by interviews
of nine which indicated that necessary action as soon with experts of construction machinery. This
as possible. This means that the procurement of a mach ine is able to suppress the bulk 4 kg coco peat
new working method or an ergonomic press machine coco peat into one unit block. The cost of
is required in terms of packaging. construction of this machine is much cheaper when
The design of the press machine is done by using compared to the cost of purchasing the press
the worker's body dimensions (five workers) as mach ine of the market for Rp 65,000,000 per unit
consideration of the dimensions of the press with the same capacity. Figure 5 shows the
mach ine. Body dimensions used were High Standing appearance of the proposed draft press machine.
Elbow, Hand Reach and Height Upright.

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ICONART 2019 - International Conference on Natural Resources and Technology

3.2 Calculation of Productivity

3 Productivity calculations carried out for before and

after value engineering. Factors taken into account
the inputs and outputs include:
1. Raw material costs namely the costs required in
4 200 cm the acquisition of raw materials (Rp 7 / kg)
2. Telaborcost which consist of salaries to
154,53 cm

2 emp loyees (five workers with a salary of Rp

1
50,000 / day / person before value engineering
97,26 cm

5
and Rp 75,000 / day / person after value
120 cm
69,25
cm
engineering).
(a) (b) 3. The energy cost which consist of electric power
Figure 5: (a) Draft of the press machine (b) How to use. costs for machinery and other production
purposes.
Information: 4. Transportation cost is the transportation cost to
1. Container as a place to put coco peat the consumer (Rp 283 / kg prior to value
2. Control valve as a means of controlling the lowering engineering and Rp 373 / block after value
and raising the working cylinder. engineering).
3. Cylinder as a means to lower and raise the mould
5. The cost of packaging ie the cost of procurement
presses.
4. M old presses as a tool that puts pressure on coco peat of sacks for bulk coco peat or plastic / cardboard
into blocks. for products coco peat block (Rp 1,500 for sacks
5. Door as a place to put out the coco peat that has been and an assumed amount of Rp 6,708,000 for
printed. plastic and cardboard)
6. Depreciation costs of equipment and machinery.
In Figure 5 (b) is shown posture coco peat bulk 7. Machinery maintenance costs.
of wo rkers when inserting bulk coco peat into the 8. The output is the result of revenues from product
mach ine. Posture thus already looks much better sales (Rp 600 / kg for bulk and Rp 2,300 / kg for
when compared with the posture before the press the block). Each o f the coco peat block is made
mach ine. Posture assessment work on the use of the of 4 kg of coco peat bulk.
press machine shown in Figure 6. To see a comparison of productivity of prior to
value engineering and after value engineering, then a
simp le simu lation is done using historical data. The
1 production data with press machine designed
2
ergonomically and the ready to use purchased
2 mach ine is considered the same as the specification
5 0
is also considered as the same engine capacity. Coco
2
5 1 2
peat production data 2016-2017 period are shown in
Table 3.

3 Table 3: Comparison of production data before and after

2
3
value engineering.
Prior to Value After Value
1 4 5 Engineering Engineering
Raw material
Month (B) (A)
(Kg) (A) (B)
(Rp (000
Figure 6: REBA sheet assessment after value engineering. (T on) (Rp 000)
000) Blocks)
2016 Aug' 99.400 71 2.3 17.75 6,708
REBA assessment results show the value of five,
which indicates that the working posture is safe to 2016 Sept' 105,000 75 2.5 18.75 6,708
do in the long term. 2016, Oct' 106.400 76 2.5 19:00 6,708
2016, Nov' 105,000 75 2.5 18.75 6,708
2016 Dec’ 96,600 69 2.3 17:25 6,708
2017, Jan' 96,600 69 2.3 17:25 6,708

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 Value Engineering of Coco Peat Product to Increase Productivity

Table 4: Comparison of production data before and after Total productivity index for the condition before
value engineering (continued). value engineering and after value engineering with
Prior to designed machine and purchased machine
After Value successively 1.34, 1.81, and 1.79. This figure means
Value
Engineering that every US $ 1 generate Rp 1.34 to conditions
Raw material Engineering
M onth
(Kg) (B) (A) prior to engineering, and so on for the other options.
(A) (B)
(Rp (000 This means the condition after the value engineering
(Ton) (Rp 000)
000) Blocks) with designed machine is the best option because it
2017, Feb' 109,200 78 2.6 19:50 6,708 has the highest index value.
2017, M ar' 105,000 75 2.5 18.75 6,708
2017, Apr' 75 2.5 6,708
3.3 Added Value
105,000 18.75
,
2017, M ay 109,200 78 2.6 19:50 6,708 Added value calculation is performed to see how
2017, June
109,200 78 2.6 19:50 6,708 much pro fit is obtained by producers as compared to
'
prior to value engineering. This calculation will be
2017 July ' 100,800 72 2.4 18:00 6,708
done by comparing the value of profits after value
Total 1,247,000 891 29.7 223 80,496
engineering using the press machine which is
Information:
ergonomically designed, with the profit before value
(A) The raw material is processed and sold
(B) Costs incurred for packaging engineering. The option of after value engineering
with designed machine is chosen to be analyzed
Based on production data on Table 3 the because this option has the highest value. Tables 5
productivity of each condition can be calculated. and 6 respectively show the cost of production and
Co mparison of productivity before and after value the selling value of the condition before and after
engineering can be seen in Table 4.
value engineering.
Table 5: Productivity comparison before and after value
engineering. Table 6: Production cost and income before value
engineering.
(A) (B) (C)
No Description Production Amount Price Total
(Rp 000) (Rp 000) (Rp 000) No.
description (kg) (Rp) (Rp)
1 Output (Income) (Rp) 534.600 683.100 683.100
1 Income 1 2,300 2,300
2 Input (Rp) 2 Production cost
Raw material 8.731 8.731 8.731 Raw material 4 7 29
Labor 74.250 111.375 111.375 Labor 375
Energy 16.375 60.106 60.106 Energy 202
Packaging 44.550 80.496 80.496 Packaging 271
Transportation 252,000 110.820 110.820 Depreciation 17
Depreciation 1,450 5,050 7,300 Transportation 373
M aintenance 60 1,800 2,400 M aintenance 6
Total Cost of Total Production Costs 434
397.958 378.379 381.230
Production Profit per kg (Rp) 166
3 Gross Revenue (Rp) 136.641 304.720 301.869
4 Corporate Income 20.496 Table 7: Cost of production and income after value
Tax 15% 45.708 45.280
engineering.
5 Net income 116.145 259.012 256.589
6 Productivity Total Production Amount Price
1:34 1.81 1.79 No. Total (Rp)
(D) description (kg) (Rp)
1 Income 1 600 600
Information: 2 Production cost
(A) Prior to the engineering value Raw material 1 7 10
(B) After engineering value with the press machine design Labor 83
results Energy 15
(C) After engineering value with the press machines Packaging 50
purchased in the market Depreciation 1
(D) Calculated by a formula (1) Transportation 283
M aintenance 1

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ICONART 2019 - International Conference on Natural Resources and Technology

Total Production Costs 434 reliability of the investment against various

Profit per kg (Rp) 166 scenarios.
Generally this method of value added is not
It can be concluded that by using the system of something new in the develop ment of coco peat. But
bulk sales, manufacturers have lost Rp 860 per kg o r there is still limited study which discussed about the
economic value of coco peatfor most of them are
Rp 766,260,000 per year. This figure is quite large
discussing about the usage of coco peat as growing
because the value has exceeded the value of sales of
med ia such as done in (Yahya, A, 1997 and Trivedi,
bulk per year that is Rp 534,600,000. In other words Darshini R., 2014)
there is an increase of 143% of inco me co mpare to The kind of coco peat discussed in this study is
prior of value engineering. the kind that needs a further treat ment before use.
Especially if it is to be used as growing med ia. Coco
4 DISCUSSION peat has a chemical property name tanin which is
harmful for plants for it can prevent them to grow.
There are three options on this study to be Hence why, coco peat need to be soaked in water fo r
considered. Option 1 is the condition without VE, several hours before used. This process is meant to
option 2 is VE with the designed machine, and reduce or eliminated the tanin in the coco peat by
option 3 is VE with purchased machine. Productivity rinsing it off with water (Ramadhan, Dimas, 2018,
values of the three options can be seen on Figure 7. Arif, 2014).
This study is only discussing the press machine
because for now it is the only required condition to
O ptions Comparison per kg Product fulfil the market demand. The current local market
2500 Productiv
2300 2300
ity index
preferred a low cost rather than a quality product. If
2000 needed, a further research can be done to develop
Selling
Rupiah

1500 pric e further the value of coco peat such as making a

1274 1283 Productio
1000 1026 1017
n cost
ready to use coco peat which has already labelled
840
500 600 Added and standardized quality parameters such as weight,
434
166 257 Value size, impurities, mo isture, electrical conductivity,
0 1,34 1,81
0 1,79 Opportun
Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 ity cost
pH, phytosanitary test (Plant Quarantine Certificate),
salinity, fibre content, cation exchange capacity
Rupiah
(CEC), etc.
This standardization is necessary if we want to
Figure 7: Options comparison. expand our business internationally. In Netherland,
there are already many coco peat producers which
Fro m productivity point of v iew, the added value has been certificated by European Certification body
for option 1 and 2 are above the production cost for Agricultural Sector (ECAS). These companies
which means both option is giving better cost to not only provide a standardized coco peat, they are
income rat io than option 3. Fro m the opportunity also selling a customized coco peat-based media
cost which means the loss that gain by choosing mixtu res for each type of plant. So buyer can buy the
other option, the base value is the option 2 because it most suitable type to increased the success rate in
has the best added value. If option 1 is chosen growing plants (trubus online, 2009).
company would lost the income of Rp 840 per In India, they even have a Coir Board which has
kilogram and if option 3 is chosen then company a lot of information about coconut derivatives
will lost Rp 257 per kg. products and control the regulations and the
Basically the option 2 is the best option to development of coco peat industry. Not only for
choose. But there is also some disadvantage of it growing med ia coco peat even used for a living lawn
such as a necessary of an expert machine constructor that can be rolled up, as a raw material to make
to deliver the design into real life in the right way. briquettes, bio oil, insulator, production of vanillin,
This option will need some adjustment fo r the activated carbon, even textiles (Min istry of MSM E
workers to get used to it. The period of adjustment, India, 2016).
there will be a slight deviation in the p roductivity
due to learn ing curve. A sensitivity analysis also has
not been done. So we cannot make sure the

356
 Value Engineering of Coco Peat Product to Increase Productivity

5 CONCLUSIONS Trubus online, 2009. Henk van Staalduinen Pada

Cocopeat Belanda Bersandar. (Accessed from
http://www.trubus-online.co.id/henk-van-staalduinen-
In conclusion, this study indicates that the value pada-cocopeat-belanda-bersandar/ on February 25th,
engineering done by transforming the form of coco 2019).
peat fro m bulk to b lock can increase the productivity
and income to the company. The added value is not
only the increase of productivity, but also the
healthy and comfort wh ile working for the chosen
option is to make the ergonomically designed press
mach ine rather than the ready to use machine that
can be purchased from the market.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge that the present

research is supported by Talenta Research Grant of
Research Institution of Un iversitas Sumatera Utara
on Contact Number of 5338/UN5.1.R/PPM//2017,
date of 22 Mei 2017. The grat itude is also intended
for Leni and Rat ihSulastri for the help and support
provided for this paper.

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