Integration of Karakuri and Automation to Wingko Production of Small to Medium-Sized Enterprise

Furqon Sandiva Utomo Putra

02411740000161 / Q
furqon29999@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
Industrial revolution is the term used to call the change in nature of industries between the
eighteen and nineteen centuries; when said changes first happened (Bezanson, 1922). That being said,
there is no specific event that could be pointed at and determined as an “industrial revolution”. Rather,
the term refers to the whole, noticeable changes that is resulted to the shift in trends and accumulated
evolvement of existing and/or emerging industries. This shift in trends include the widespread of
science and technology implementation, transition of labor’s role, substitution of human resource, and
etcetera (Deane, 2000). Automation as an aspect of industrial revolution, more specifically the thid
one, for instance shows the use of mechanization and integration of automated technologies that
replace human labors (Jorgen & Mats, 2008). Furthermore, industrial revolution was revolutionary not
only because it changes how an industry works, but also because it revolutionizes the economy as a
whole. It is considered as an escape from poverty that was suffered by individuals and even a country
as a whole (King & Timmins, 2001). Thus, for that very reason, it is in a country’s, especially the
developing ones, best interest to promote the industries within it to embraces and even strife to the
implementation of industrial revolutions as it continuously evolving. This is not only to pursue the
economical prosperity mentioned earlier, but also for the industries to keep up with the worldwide
raise of competitiveness stemmed by the revolution itself.
Competitiveness as other results of industrial revolution were resulted by the nature of
production in industry that became easier thanks to the help of technology. This means that the
method to produce things are increasingly available for every company to implements in their own
process. This kind of common advantage creates tight competitiveness as the companies that practice
the best use in those technology could push and determine that market as low as possible, while the
other has to follow and adapt to survive. In a third world country, these kinds of practice may not be
easy to do by Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This is because the adoption of technology
and automation is not a low-cost investment, and the return may take a while for it to be worth it; if it
ever that is.
Thus, with the consideration of productivity and cost, it is the goal for industrial engineers to
be able to bridge those two aspects. Meaning that to achieve competitive edge from SMEs required
not only a decent level of automation, but also ones that is economically feasible. In this paper, the
author will present a theoretical view on how principles in automation, as well as karakuri, may be
practically integrated in SMEs to improve their business process, as well as how it can be further
developed in the future. An SME that produce wingko cake has been chosen for the object that will be
improved upon in the aspect of its production line, specifically the cooking part.
Then, it is hoped that the proposed model of karakuri will be able to be adopted into a
prototype, and eventually the real machine in the future in order to help the SME achieved an
improvement in production, which in turn lead to its competitive edge. The model will implement
karakuri in the material handling part, while the automation will take charge in the cooking process of
the wingko cake.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Small to Medium Enterprise
In general, small to medium-sized enterprises are independent firm that employ a small
number of employees (OECD, 2001). Furthermore, Indonesia defined UKM not only based on the
number of employees, but also the assets and revenue it generates (GoUKM, 2016). The ministry of
cooperation and small to medium-sized enterprise of Indonesian Republic (2018) stated that by 2017
alone, there are 62,922,617 unit of SMEs that operates in Indonesia, which amount to 116,673,516
number of workers. The ministry’s agency in East Java (2018) also stated that there are 260,762 SMEs
with 466,779 workers operating in Surabaya. To put it in perspective, these numbers shows that
around 43 percent of Indonesian citizens are working for SMEs. Furthermore, Indonesian minister of

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finance stated that SMEs are contributing to 96 percent of Indonesian workforce, and 60% of
Indonesian GDP (Kompas, 2018).

Table 1 Data on SMEs in Indonesia (Source: Ministry of Cooperation and Small to Medium-Sized
Enterprises of Indonesian Republic)

Those number shows that SMEs has a big relevance in Indonesian’s industry and economy.
Thus, it is under Indonesia’s government’s best interest to nurture and grow these SME in order for it
to compete with the international market; further improving Indonesia’s economy. That being said,
SMEs in Indonesia generally suffers from a mindset that the organization only works to make ends
meet; as in, simply to survive rather than to thrive. As elaborated by Scott (1987), it is argued that SME
is a small social community where the member shares common interest to survive and work to secure
this end. This kind of picture for SMEs shows that the organizations tends to not have the strength to
face a changing environment (North & Varvakis, 2016). This is problematic since as stated in the
background, industrial revolution will continuously evolve and shift the way business is conducted. An
inability or even refusal to adapt to changing environment will result in failure for the company.

Figure 1 The Observed SME (Source: SME’s publication)

The same kind of mindset are found in the observed SME, “Rumah Oleh-Oleh Karina”, that
operates in food and beverage sector. The wingko producer has stated that despite encouragement
from researcher and SME trainer, it currently does not have much interest in focusing on the business’
growth. The owner argued that the lack of motivation is resulted from the household work that
occupied most of her focus. This is because the SME are still a household business, and the owner
works alone most of the time to produce the wingko product. She sees the SME as simply a sideline
work that works as an added stream to her household budget rather than as the main stream of
revenue.
Wingko

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 Figure 2 The product of the observed SME (Source: SME's publication)

Wingko is a traditional food from Indonesia, specifically originated from Babat. That being said,
wingko’s popularity aren’t only exist around East Java, but also to the whole country, especially
Semarang. The cake is made out of coconut, rice flour, sugar, egg, butter, and vanilla. It is done by
simply mixing all the ingredients together, and then cook it with small fire. According to the owner of
Rumah Oleh-Oleh Karina, both the mixing process and cooking can take up to 30 minutes respectively,
making the whole production process taking 1 hour in total to produce 8 units of wingko.
The mixing process of wingko takes a long time because it is done manually. This is because
mixing it by blender will results in a mixture that is too delicate, which will make the resulting wingko
became too crumbly rather than chewy. The cooking process also takes a long time because it is done
using small fire. Small fire is used because it ensures the dough are well done to the very core of the
cake. In the cooking process, the wingko is also needed to be flipped every 8 minutes to make sure
that both sides are cooked evenly.
At the moment, Rumah Oleh-Oleh Karina only produced around 40 wingko per week. 24
wingko can be made in a single production process, but it is not commonly preferable as it takes more
effort and labor to do so. Thus, it is more common for the production to produce 8 units of wingko at
a time. Upon interview with the owner, it is stated the biggest gribe from the whole process is in the
tiring mixing process, and the limited number of wingko that can be cooked at a time (Ratnasari, 2019).
Karakuri
Karakuri is a Japanese term that means
“mechanism” or “trick”. It is originated from the art of
Karakuri Ningyou or mechanical doll, and later also
applied in clock before it is applied in Industry through
Karakuri Kaizen (Yokota, 2008). Karakuri Kaizen refers to
the improvement of shop floor by applying simple and
low-cost mechanical device that automates some part of
the process (Yamamoto et al., 2018). Said device
operates using natural physics principles such as gravity,
wind, magnet, and kinetics force without any electricity.
In Japan, the practice of Karakuri Kaizen is widely Figure 3 Karakuri Ningyou (Source:
practiced in Japan. Not only because of its low-cost http://myinternetcorner.com/karakuri-
improvement, but also because of its relation their japanese-mechanized-automata-doll-
culture empowers worker to be creative and come up puppet/)
with their own karakuri improvement in their working
area (Rahimifard, et al., 2005).

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 Despite of its simplicity, karakuri kaizen’s role
in achieving lean production cannot be understated.
Kaizen as one of the tools for lean manufacturing has
become Japanese Industries’ number on competitive
advantage (Machikita et al., 2016). The term means
continuous improvement, which is in line with the
lean manufacturing principle in continuously improve
the business to reduce less and less input while still
maintaining and improving the output (Alcaraz et al.,
2017). Thus, it can be said that it is karakuri kaizen’s
simplicity itself that makes it valuable for lean
manufacturing, as it is reduce waste without much Figure 4 Example of Karakuri Kaizen
additional cost in exchange of it. When it comes to structer (Source:
kaizen, as long as the cost justify the means, it is always http://blog.item24.de/en/article-
worth it to improve. detail/show-blog-article/know-
Automation how/karakuri-kaizen-automation-with-
Automation is technology that uses smarts.html)
mechanical, electronic, or computer-based system that
operate and control production (Groover, 2001). The terms differ with mechanization in which
automation replace human thinking while mechanization replace human working. This means that
automation hinges on its building blocks which are sensor, processor, and actuator. It not just replaces
the works that was previously done by human into machine, but rather it replaces the judgement;
what and when an action is executed when receiving certain input.
In a manufacturing industry, automation is branched into automation within manufacturing
system in factory and support system. Both systems are designed to improve the production cycle by
eliminating cost, lead time, and increase productivity. Thus, the term automation emphasizes on the
quality aspect of a system; as in efficiency, productivity, and reliability (Goldberg, 2012).
In a shop floor, automation can be applied to both the direct processing of the raw material,
and the supervising of said process. It can be applied to every type of manufacturing and presents
improvement in productivity, reduce cost, minimize human error, and better product quality. That
being said, it also comes with a relatively high initial investment. However, it is still possible for
company with lower budget to implement automation through Low Cost Automation (LCA).
LCA is a term that refer to building automation around existing equipment using components
that are available cheaply at the market (Gupta & Arora, 2011). This kind of option is cheaper, and thus
have quicker payback period. However, Gupta & Arora (2011) also raises some concern that needs to
be addressed before implementing the LCA such as the current production level, motion study, and
the design. This is to ensure that the LCA does not resulted into worst performance than the manual
works.
The study conducted by McKinsey & Co. stated that around 50% of existing work activities can
be automated by using the technologies that are already available now (Manyika, et al., 2017).
Although these statements raised workers’ concern on their employment security as well as
government’s managing their economic growth, the study also argued that such kind of effects will
different between countries; developed country will be more prone to suffer from the effect more
than the developing one. That being said, with government intervention and regulation, the shift can
happen in a manageable rate.

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Upon interview with the owner of the SME, there are two point of improvement that is needed
by the SME related to the production process: an automated dough mixer, and an oven that can cook
more than one tray of wingko at a time. These two factors have been the gripe that prevent the SME
to takes the business more seriously rather than just a sideline job. Thus, building an automation
around these problems could lead to not only the improvement of the existing process, but also
motivation for the SME to expand the business. However, this paper will only address the latter
question due to the limitation of building on top of existing machine, which is an oven.

Furqon Sandiva Utomo Putra | 6 | Industrial Automation

 On integrating an automated system for an SME, the biggest concern would be the cost of the
machine. Thus, lowering cost as much as possible while still getting the intended objective would be
the goal of designing the system. Thus, karakuri as a method of automation that is cheap and relatively
easy to make became the best option to be implemented to the SME. The following are the karakuri
design that is implemented:

Figure 5 The proposed karakuri design (Source: Author’s file)

The proposed design automated the material handling portion of the wingko cooking process.
The main component being platform, conveyor, and spring/ It works by automatically send the tray of
wingko dough as soon as it full. This is done by using spring that will hold the platform where the
wingko tray is on up until it is heavy enough to press the spring down; i.e. full of wingko dough. To do
this, the spring needs to have the tension similar to, but a bit less than, the weight of a full tray of
wingko. As soon as the platform collapse, gravity will take the tray down and slide into the oven.
The integration of automation in the cooking process itself would be handled by automation
using sensors and actuators. The following are the design that is proposed:

Figure 6 The proposed automation system (Source: Author's file)

The figure above not only shows the whole integration of the automation from start to the
beginning of the cooking process. The flow goes from the material handling from the karakuri, to then
slide inside the oven. The oven door will open when the proximity sensor detects the tray. The same

Furqon Sandiva Utomo Putra | 7 | Industrial Automation

signal will also trigger a timer and heating coil to start. The heating coil will need to be able to direct
heat from every direction in the oven, eliminating the need of flipping the dough. Once the timer
stopped, the heating coil will stop, the conveyor belt will start, and the exit door will open, bringing
the tray to the next karakuri platform. The second karakuri walks in the exact same way as the first
one, the only difference being the direction. The device will send the karakuri to slides down back to
the area where it was loaded from.
The proposed design has theoretically answered the integration of automation in the wingko
production of an SME, as it is relatively cheap for it is build upon karakuri and existing technology. That
being said, there is still a concern that is not yet addressed; how well it integrates in the food industry.
The production process in a food industry needs to be accurate as it deals with taste and quality,
especially since the end product will be consumed by people before it dissolved inside their body. Thus,
the automation that is integrated within a food industry must be careful to not jeopardize the quality
of the food, much less the safeness. In general, trying to achieve lean manufacturing by integrating
automation must not reduce the quality of the product, but food industry raised bigger concern as
error in the end product can be deadly. Thus, to actually implement the machine to the production
process will need to go through some checks and trials, and then to be adjusted accordingly.
Thus, there are still plenty of room for improvement for the proposed design. For instance, it
can be made to be adjustable, so it does not only suitable for making wingko cake, but all kind of cake
since the process are pretty much the same, only with different temperature and time. This
adjustability will make the automated system to be more flexible.

CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a design that integrates the production process of an SME with karakuri
and automation; specifically, in the cooking process. The design could theoretically improve the SME
business by reducing waste and increasing productivity through a system that is fully automated.
However, the approach still has the concern of how the change in method will affects the food quality;
thus, further test needs to be conducted. The proposed design also holds the potential to be made
into a more flexible automation by implementing adjustable temperature and timer to the machine.

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