Testing of Free Fatty Acid (FFA) and Colour for Controlling the Quality of Cooking Oil Produced by PT. XYZ

Food-producing SMEs in a developing country like Indonesia involve a lot of physical work, as most of them are operating with manual equipment with high involvement of humans as workers. Due to its manual characteristic, work safety and Ergonomics and Human Factors (E/HF) are some major factors influencing the food-producing SMEs’ activities. The objective of this research was to understand work safety and ergonomics problems in the Indonesian food-producing SMEs. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 11 owners and workers of three different types of products of Indonesian food-producing SMEs. Thematic analysis on the interview identified themes and sub-themes related to work safety and ergonomics issues, explaining the experiences of Indonesian food-producing SMEs. These consultations indicated that there may be some unsafe conditions, exposure to various work hazards and ergonomics issues were found. The owners and workers of the SMEs seemed to be aware of the unsafe working conditions and ergonomics issues, though the reasons for why changes have not been implemented are not yet known. The owners and workers are keen on making improvements, but there are several limitations, e.g. inadequate understanding and cost consideration. This type of interview study has been effective in collecting opinions and explanations of working conditions from people with different perspectives of the food producing SMEs and the thematic analysis has increased understanding of the different factors that can affect safety in this type of work.

Malang Regency is an area that has potential to be developed on agricultural sector, with one most superior commodity is cassava chips. Main issue remains in the cassava chips SMEs is the partial or individual work condition in among SMEs. This research objective is to establish an industrial cluster using K-Means Clustering, and to determine the cluster's development strategy using Fuzzy AHP. Respondents involved in this research are five SMEs' owners and three experts from government and SMEs experts. Results showed that there are two clusters established. Cluster 1 belongs to small scale business with between 6 to 19 workers involved (SMEs of Dua Bawang, UD Wijaya, Pokmas Mandiri, and UD Langgeng Jaya Abadi). Cluster 2 belongs to medium scale business with 20 to 99 workers involved (SMEs of UD Pondok Tua). SME in cluster 2 has above average value of production capacity compared to cluster 1. Development strategy for cluster 1 could be done by implementing quality improvement and product standardization, as well as improving capital access. Development strategy for cluster 2 could be done by implementing quality improvement and product standardization, as well as training to improve the workers' skill and performance.

This research investigated conditions of mental workload among workers in Indonesian small foodproducing business, and how work and workers characteristics might influence the workers’ mental workload. A corn chips business located in an industrial central of corn chips in Malang municipality, Indonesia was the research object, in which its seven workers were involved as participants. NASA-TLX measurement involving six mental workload subscales was deployed to observe the current state of workers mental workload, along with determination of mean WWL value as representation of mental workload level. Measured NASA-TLX subscales varied among tasks and subscales, with indications of exposures of mental workload to the workers. This was indicated by high ratings of Mental Demand, Temporal Demand, Effort, and Frustration subscales which reached 70, 80, 90, and 70, respectively. Mean WWL values were in the range of 46.00 to 70.67, with the highest value observed was on Task 2 with 70.67 and Task 5 has the lowest value of 46.00. It is suggested that tasks and workers characteristics could have different influence on the observed mental workload subscales ratings and WWL. This research provides base of understanding and findings on states of workers’ mental workload in Indonesian small food-producing business.

UD. Bunda Foods is an SME located in the district of Sidoarjo. UD. Bunda Foods has problems of maintaining its milkfish's quality assurance and developing marketing strategies. Improving those problems enables UD. Bunda Foods to compete with other similar SMEs and to market its product for further expansion of their business. The objectives of this study were to determine the model of the institutional structure of the milkfish supply chain, to determine the elements, the sub-elements, and the relationship among each element. The method used in this research was Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), involving 5 experts as respondents consisting of 1 practitioner, 1 academician, and 3 government organisation employees. The results showed that there were two key elements include requirement and goals elements. Based on the Drive Power-Dependence (DP-D) matrix, the key sub-elements of requirement element, consisted of raw material continuity, appropriate marketing strategy, and production capital, were positioned in the Linkage sector quadrant. The DP-D matrix for the key sub-elements of the goal element also showed a similar position. The findings suggested several managerial implications to be carried out by UD. Bunda Foods include establishing good relationships with all involved institutions, obtaining capital assistance, and attending the marketing training provided by the government.

The poor and hazardous work conditions of small businesses are prevalent, including the Indonesian small food-producing businesses. Observations have been commonly used to examine and describe the work conditions, although with some limitations. Despite the seemingly useful application, the ILO-PATRIS and its IPR calculation have not been used to observe the work conditions of Indonesian small food-producing businesses. This study aimed to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of ILO-PATRIS, as an instrument to observe the working conditions of Indonesian small food-producing businesses. A small business of tempe chips was purposively selected, with three respondents involved in the scoring of the ILO-PATRIS monitoring items. The results indicated relatively poor working conditions with ILO-PATRIS score of 30 out of 58. The IPR calculations led to the understanding that several aspects could be improved, such as the personal protective equipment and physical environment. This study demonstrated that the ILO-PATRIS and its IPR calculation are useful in observing the working conditions of an Indonesian small food-producing business. However, some recommendations of the use should be considered, which may be investigated in further studies.