Melani B. Cabrera, Jaypee B. Pajarillaga, Wilfredo L. Infante, Hubert T. Dungao
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) dominates the manufacturing industry for which it comprises the 99.6% of the 946,988 establishments in the Philippines. Improving Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) operations is inevitable in order to be competitive globally. Engineering technology intervention, therefore, is sought to speed up production and improve quality. Apparently, machines are available only abroad for which prices are too high. This situation paved the way for the collaboration between university-government and private industry to develop low cost equipment that can be utilized by the MSMEs in the country. This project is about the designing and developing a low cost foam waste crusher machine that is to be used by furniture industries to disintegrate foam scraps. Specifically, the machine will address the need of small and medium scale furniture industries in Central Luzon in terms of recycling foam wastes generated from production of upholstered furniture. The Solid Works software of the university’s mechanical engineering department was used in the simulation and analysis of the design. Kinematic analysis of the designed equipment was conducted using the Cosmos Motion component of the software. Finite element method using the Cosmos Works was likewise used for the stress, strength and dynamic analysis of the designed machine elements. A prototype was constructed, tested and validated.
Furniture; Foam Waste;MSME