Abstract

OCAMPO-LOPEZ, Olga Lucía et al. New Standard Method for Picking Coffee. Ing. invest. y tecnol. [online]. 2017, vol.18, n.2, pp.127-137. ISSN 2594-0732.

Colombian coffee is one of the mildest, high quality coffees in the world; this quality is owed to seeded varieties, environmental conditions, the selective manual harvesting, the postharvest and the industrial process. The tool used for harvesting traditional method is a plastic basket attached to the waist of the collector. The Center for Coffee Research (CENICAFE) developed the Canguaro 2M - a novel device that assists in the harvesting process, which consists of two sleeves joined to the backpack fastened to the waist and shoulders of the collector. This article presents a standard method of selective harvesting, which uses this tool and was defined applying the method engineering technique. This new method assumes a series of movements in the row, in the tree through the row, in the tree and in the branch of the coffee tree; the micro-movements or therbligs in manual harvesting are also identified. The study includes a comparison with a traditional method and analysis of harvesting indicators in terms of efficiency, efficacy, quality and losses. The results suggest that adoption of the new standard harvesting method using Canguaro 2M leads to a better performance in the harvesting indicators of efficacy, quality and losses, with respect to the traditional method, without significant changes in the process efficiency.

Keywords : standard method; harvesting indicators; method engineering; coffee picking; Therbligs.