Floriculture Industry: Multifunction Leaves Stem Cutting Machine for Small Medium-sized Enterprises

Abstract

The floriculture industry plays a crucial role in the global economy by providing not only aesthetic value but also contributing significantly to agricultural employment and the export market. However, the efficiency and sustainability of SMEs in floriculture are often hindered by labourintensive practices, especially in the propagation of plants through stem cutting. This novel multifunction leaves stem cutting machine designed specifically to cater to the needs of SMEs in the floriculture sector. This machine serves the function to separate the flowers and leaves for selling purposes. It has gained lots of interest specifically in the flower-related field, florist businesses, and leaves extraction processes due to its convenient applications in separating the leaves from the flowers. However, readily available machines such as rose cutting machine are lack in it functions where it only operates only one function. The deficiency of the current product may cause serious injury to employees because the existing machine does not have good safety features that can avoid the workers being injured while carrying out the work. The objective of this study is to design, fabricate and test the functionality of the new system and ergonomic multifunction leaves stem cutting machine. The design was created by using Fusion 360 with the main part separating leaves, cutting the stem, washing part, and system part. All the processes will be carried out on the machine that have safety features that will not harm the user. The machine demonstrated exceptional performance including consistency of the machine that will benefits the SMEs with high productivity and lower production cost.