Tealeaf harvesting. Mechanisation and the improvement of productivity and efficiency

Table of Contents

Abstract

List of figures

List of tables

Abbreviations

Chap Tea Industry in Assam: Present Context
1.1 The Indian tea plantations
1.2 Origin of tea in Assam
1.3 Background of the research
1.4 Problem identification
1.5 Pilot study to understand requirement of the tea industries regarding tea plucking activities
1.5.1 Shear plucking
1.5.2 Engine powered mechanised tea harvesting machines
1.5.3 Battery powered mechanised tea harvesting machines
1.6 Research justification
1.7 Research questions (RQ)
1.8 State of the art review on mechanical harvesting of tea
1.9 Hypothesis
1.10 Aim & Objectives of research
1.10.1 Aim
1.10.2 Objectives
1.11 Research paradigm adopted
1.11.1 Ontology, epistemology, methodology
1.11.2 Ontology
1.11.3 Epistemology
1.11.4 Methodology
1.12 Research approach
1.13 The product development lifecycle
1.13.1 Analysis
1.13.2 Concept generation
1.13.3 Design
1.13.4 Development
1.13.5 Testing
1.13.6 Modification / analysis
1.13.7 Retesting
1.13.8 Final release
1.14 The outline of the thesis framework

Chap Tea Industry of Assam: Socio-economic and Demographic Situation
2.1 Plantations
2.2 Characteristics of plantations
2.3 Plantations in India
2.4 Emergence of the corporate firm
2.5 Size of tea estates
2.5.1 Small growers
2.5.2 Medium and marginal estates
2.5.3 Big estates
2.6 Economic size
2.7 Estate management
2.8 Origin and growth
2.9 Role of managing agencies
2.10 Plantation system and human resource structure in tea
2.11 plantations of Assam Classification of tea plantation employees
2.11.1 Workers
2.11.2 Staff
2.11.3 Managers and Assistant Managers
2.12 Difference between plantation labour and other agricultural labour
2.13 The Plantations Labour Act, 1951
2.14 Other legal provisions
2.14.1 Maternity benefits
2.14.2 Provident fund
2.14.3 Gratuity
2.14.4 Bonus
2.15 Present production scenario of Assam Tea
2.16 Background of tea plantation workers of Assam
2.17 Migration process
2.18 Survival of migrating labourer vs. economia of migration
2.19 Governmental intervention
2.20 Cultural background
2.20.1 Evolution of Ex-Tea tribe
2.20.2 Present scenario: Assimilation with native culture and societies
2.20.3 Social bonding, merger with main stream
2.20.4 Recent turmoil

Chap Tea Plantation and Tea Manufacturing Process
3.1 Nursery
3.1.1 Propagation from seed
3.1.2 Propagation from leaf
3.2 Pruning
3.2.1 Objectives of pruning
3.2.2 Procedure of pruning
3.2.3 The procedure of checking plant readiness for pruning
3.2.4 Types of pruning
3.2.5 Pruning time
3.2.6 Factors affecting pruning time (Tea Research Institute (TRI), Sri Lanka, 2013)
3.2.7 Cycles of tea pruning
3.2.8 Procedure of choosing correct pruning cycle
3.2.9 Conclusion on pruning
3.3 Skiffing
3.3.1 Deep skiff (DS)
3.3.2 Level off skiff (LOS)
3.3.3 Medium skiff (MS)
3.3.4 Light skiff (LS)
3.4 Tipping
3.5 Plucking
3.5.1 Tea flushes
3.5.2 Method of plucking
3.5.3 Standards of plucking
3.5.4 Plucking interval
3.5.5 The correct time of the year for plucking
3.5.6 Time of day and type of weather suitable for plucking
3.5.7 Types of leaves suitable for plucking
3.5.8 Harvesting guidelines
3.5.9 Guidelines for quality plucking
3.5.10 Fine leaf percentage
3.5.11 Important aspects of plucking
3.6 Pest controlling
3.6.1 Spraying
3.6.2 Types of machines used in spraying
3.7 Transportation of green leaf
3.8 Processing of tea in factory
3.8.1 Various types of tea processing
3.8.1.1 Cut, Tear, Curl (CTC) processing
3.8.1.2 Orthodox processing
3.8.1.3 Green tea processing
3.8.2 Withering
3.8.3 Rotor Vane
3.8.4 Fermentation
3.8.4.1 Fermentation process
3.8.4.2 Continuous fermenting machine (CFM)
3.8.5 Drying
3.8.6 Packaging and sorting
3.9 Major classification of finished product
3.9.1 Black tea
3.9.2 Oolong tea
3.9.3 White tea
3.9.4 Green tea
3.9.5 Fermented tea
3.9.6 Yellow tea

Chapter 4 Mechanical Harvesting of Tea
4.1 The necessity of mechanised harvesting
4.2 Background of mechanical tea harvesting
4.3 Introduction to shear plucking and its outcome
4.4 Motorised plucking machines
4.5 Some common handheld tea harvesting machines
4.5.1 Battery operated tea harvester- single operator
4.5.2 Single operator, gasoline powered tea harvester
4.5.3 Two operator, gasoline powered tea harvester
4.5.4 Two-operator gasoline powered selective tea harvester
4.6 Status of existing machines
4.7 Some common problems associated with motorised tea 91 harvesters
4.8 Performance comparison of various mechanised 92 harvesting processes
4.9 Conclusion on mechanised harvesting of tea

Chapter 5 Concept Generation, Design and Prototyping
5.1 Working principle of single operator battery powered 98 tea leaf harvesting machine
5.2 Expansion of cutting span
5.3 Design conceptualisation
5.4 Rotors
5.5 Drive shaft
5.6 Cutting blades
5.7 Spacers
5.8 Casing
5.9 Assembly of different components of the cutting head
5.10 Selection of prime mover
5.10.1 Mechanical Power (Work done per second)
5.10.2 Calculation for equivalent electrical power
5.10.3 Calculation for the rated current of the motor
5.10.4 Calculation for battery specification
5.11 Details of battery and battery pack
5.12 Motion transmission
5.13 Collection chamber
5.14 Integrated motor assembly and motion transmission system
5.15 Handling
5.15.1 Alternative-1
5.15.2 Alternative-2
5.16 Design for ease of operation of machine while carrying and operation at field
5.16.1 Alternative 1: Single lever mechanism with support from backpack
5.16.2 Alternative 2: Carrying mechanism with adjustable hinge
5.17 Calculation of optimum revolution of the rotor assembly through functional test

Chap Design Validation of the Newly Designed Machine
6.1 Materials & methods
6.2 The pruning cycles adopted in this section
6.3 Experiment design
6.4 Experiment details
6.5 Findings of experiments
6.5.1 Experiment no.1
6.5.2 Interpretation of Experiment No 1
6.5.3 Experiment no.2
6.5.4 Interpretation of Experiment No 2
6.5.5 Experiment no.3
6.5.6 Interpretation of Experiment No 3
6.5.7 Experiment no.4
6.5.7.1 Test for left hand
6.5.7.2 Test for right hand
6.5.8 Interpretation of Experiment No 4
6.5.9 Experiment no.5: Body part discomfort study
6.5.10 Interpretation of Experiment No 5
6.6 Validation of hypothesis

Chap Discussions, Conclusion and Recommendations
7.1 Brief summery
7.2 Precautions to be taken for mechanised harvesting
7.3 Guidelines to implement the mechanised harvesting
7.4 Suggestions for successful implementation of mechanised harvesting
7.5 Findings of present study
7.5.1 Battery charging and replacement system
7.5.2 Optimum clearance between rotor assembly and cutting plane
7.5.3 Optimum revolution per minute of the rotor shaft
7.6 Contribution of present research
7.6.1 Benefits for Small tea growers
7.6.2 Cost benefits
7.6.3 Increase in productivity
7.7 Suggestions and recommendations
7.8 Limitation of the current research and future scope

References

Appendix A A pictorial activity diagram on the female worker of in a tea garden of Assam

Appendix B Assembly and part drawings

Abstract

The Indian tea industry is one of the major foreign revenue earners for the country. It is one of the major employers of women. Many of the activities, especially the tea-leaf plucking activity (constituting 40 percent of the total cost of production of tea leaves) performed by the women workers.

The tea industries of Assam, in are facing revenue losses during recent times. One of the main factors is shortage of workforce engaged in field operations. Studies have shown that acute shortage of workforce takes place in the tea plucking activities during peak season due to various socio-economic reasons. Due to the manpower shortage, a considerable quantity of available tea leaves for tea making remains unplucked. This directly affects the overall production of made tea and hence on the revenue earnings by the tea gardens. In this scenario, the only suitable solution to the problem appears to be the adaptation of mechanised harvesting.

The purpose of this research is to formulate a solution for mechanised harvesting which should be economical and suitable for tea gardens of Assam. To accomplish the stated purpose; a combination of research methods featuring literature survey, questionnaire, direct observation, one to one interview for data collection; statistical analysis of the gathered data, work study technique, virtual human modelling and simulation, prototype development and testing has been used.

After gathering necessary information, it was felt that for tea gardens of Assam, a single operator handheld battery-powered rotary type tea harvesting machine with high productivity in comparison to presently available machines with a similar mode of operation will be the best solution.

The prototype of the proposed machine was developed at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati and field trials were carried out at Dolaguri Tea Estate located in Numoligarh, Assam with a participatory approach. Through these field trials, it was found that the newly designed machine was efficient and had higher productivity compared to hand plucking.

While the field trials were carried out, it was also found that the machine was safe for operation from the point of view of safety, user-friendly and design was thus efficient.

Keywords: Product design, tea-harvesting, agricultural engineering, tea plucking,

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List of figures

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List of tables

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Chapter 1 Tea Industry in Assam: Present Context

Tea is a widely consumed drink in the world as a beverage. Tea originated in China and later on the British popularised it in most of the European & Asian countries (Dutta A. K., 1992). Tradition ascribes the discovery of tea to Chinese people. The word tea is derived from ‘The’ - in Amoy language. Since 2000 years ago the use of tea was known (Mary & Heiss, 2007) to the Chinese. In the beginning, tea was used for medicinal purpose in China. Moreover, the natives of Tibet, Burma, and Assam were using tea for centuries. People during that time used tea to neutralise depression, headache, eye pain, joint pains, and several other pains of the same nature (Willson & Clifford, 1992).

Health benefits of tea - Tea is having antioxidant properties. This helps to neutralise the oxidising elements present in human body. Due to presence of polyphenols in tea, it is claimed that consuming tea in regular manner helps to prevent specific types of cancer by inducing Phase-I and Phase-II metabolic enzymes which increases the formation and excretion of detoxified metabolites of carcinogens (Sharma et al., 2007).

Dutch Merchants introduced tea to Europe during the early part of the 17th Century. Garraway's Coffee House in London first publicly served tea in 1657, and it became one of the popular drinks in England. Import of tea from China by the British East India Company began in 1689. By 1700, tea had become one of the great non-alcoholic drinks in several countries (Willson & Clifford, 1992). For next few decades, tea was imported from China to various European markets.

1.1 The Indian tea plantations

The history of tea cultivation in India is quite old. In India, cultivation of tea was meant for consuming it as a stimulating beverage and as well as an ingredient in the traditional system of medicine (Tea Board, 2013). The commercial production of tea in India began with the arrival of the East India Company in Assam. Presently, tea is a major beverage and India along with China is the highest producer of tea. A major portion of tea (around 82%) produced in India is consumed locally (Tea Board, 2016).

The higher demand for tea in Britain and the unsteady trade relations between China and Great Britain were two major reasons for Britain’s initiatives to establish a steady tea business in India. During 1780 A.D., the trade relation between Great Britain and China weakened and due to these reason initiatives were taken to find out alternative sources for tea and this led to the discovery of tea plants in India. Britain started to concentrate towards British India for the cultivation of tea on a commercial basis (Baildon, 1881).

After 1850 the quantities of tea export from China beginning to fall mainly due to emerging tea plantations in the Indian state of Assam. In the year 1887, Britain imported more tea from Sri Lanka & India than China (Willson & Clifford, 1992).

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Table 1.1: UK Import of tea from 1883 to 1889 (Source: Willson K.C 1992)

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Fig. 1.1: United Kingdom's import of tea from 1883 to 1889. (Source: Willson K.C 1992) The tea industry in India is one of the most efficiently organised agricultural enterprises (Arya, 2013). The credit for the growth in tea industry goes to the entrepreneurs from the Great Britain, who invested a huge capital during the initial days of the plantation. After the Yandabo Treaty in 1826, King of Ava (now in Myanmar) handed over Assam to the British and thus the latter gained absolute control over entire Assam (Dutta A. K., 1992). This treaty provided incentives to the British traders for expanding their area under tea cultivation as they acquired government lands in favourable term and after losing legal monopoly of the tea trade between Britain and China in 1833, the then British East India Company began looking for another origin of supply in the newly conquered regions. Upper Assam was selected as the preferred region for tea cultivation because, in the early 19th century, tea was first discovered growing in the wild in many places around the Brahmaputra valley.

In 1836, the first experimental tea cultivation in Assam began, and for the first time in 1839, tea from Assam was sent to London Auction, which received very positive feedback (Akhtar, 1939). Thus, this was the beginning of the tea industry of Assam. In tea plantation, the regulations placed into observing by the then colonial rulers (British) were extraordinarily favourable for the European entrepreneurs. Due to the lack of knowledge of tea cultivation and dealing capital, local entrepreneurs have shown very little interest and initiatives in tea cultivation throughout the initial days. Even entrepreneurs have shown very little interest and initiatives in tea cultivation throughout the initial days. Even after the independence, the situation was somewhat same as British firms were confiscated by the non-public organisations from the mainland of India. Therefore, it is rightly aforementioned that “the plantation sector in Assam thieved on alien interest, employed capital, labourers from outside the region and catered to the needs of external market” (Borah, 2013). From the uncertain starting, tea industry of Assam, as per the year 2014 -15 data Assam is having 307.08 hectares of land under tea plantation with a total production of 606.8 million kg (Tea Board, 2016). India is the second largest producer of tea in the world (1197 Million kg in 2014-15) and fourth in global export (Tea Board, 2016). Tea (chai) has become a common beverage of India, and it consumes around 82 % of her total production. It is one among the oldest organised industries in India and one among the largest employment generator in the organised sector. Over 12, 00,000 permanent and virtually the same numbers of casual and seasonal staff area unit utilised by the tea industry (Gothoskar, 2012). The growth of this industry in India has helped to develop regional economy and infrastructure of the many backward regions like Assam.

The British played the leading role in rearranging the export oriented agriculture in the first half of the nineteenth century. Britishers were responsible for the creation of a replacement, colonial order re-shaping the state, and society in such a way that the most English agriculturist could begin cultivating those crops that were very much profit making in the markets controlled by English trading houses. The transfer of political power to British East India companies dawned the beginning of the new agricultural policy.

The credit of establishing tea plantations in India largely goes to Britain. Northeast India was the pioneering area, where the government’s first experiments in the cultivation of tea plant were carried out with both Chinese and Assam indigenous plants. As superintendent of tea culture, Bruce established nurseries and manufactured tea with the help of Chinese tea makers. In the early years of jungle clearance and planting, the first generation planters had to undergo tremendous hardships, like- living in primitive mud huts and fighting with wild animals and diseases. The government, having ascertained that cultivation of tea plants in India was a feasible proposition, started handing over all its experimental tea lands to private enterprise. Early in 1840, two-thirds of the East India Company’s tea lands were handed over to the newly formed Assam Company rent-free for a ten-year period. The Assam Tea Company also took out leases on various other wild tea tracts. Thus, it can be said that this was beginning of the tea plantation system in India (Dutta A. K., 1992).

The industry, since the beginning of the 1850s, began to expand rapidly, and vast areas of land were consumed for tea plantations, and gradually Assam became the leading tea producing region in the world.

1.2 Origin of tea in Assam

The tea plant belongs to the botanical family of Camellia Sinensis. It belongs to the genus Camellia, which has eighty-two species (Wilson, 1992, P 25). Commercially and taxonomically tea is the most famous of all Camellia species. Camellia was named in honour of a Moravian Jesuit called (1660-1706) ‘Came’ (Camillus in Latin), who wrote about plants in Asia. The tea plant is placed in the polymorphic species ‘Camellia Sinensis'. According to recent findings, it was found that this plant of commerce in India is derived from two species (Jat) viz.

i. Small-leaved China variety (Camellia Sinensis ver. Sinensis (l.))
ii. Large-leaved Assam variety (Camellia Sinensis ver. Ass Amica).

The Chinese variety is a Dwarf, slow growing and shrub-like whereas Assam variety is tall, quick growing tree (Wilson, 1992, P 31).

However, it is observed that due to hybridisation presently more than these two species are involved in the evolution of the present day tea plant in India. Considerable interspecific hybridisation has taken place in nature. Hence the taxonomy of tea is compounded. However, tea today is botanically in general referred as Camellia Sinensis (L), O. Kuntze.

Camellia Sinensis is indigenous to Assam, and it was discovered in the 1820's. In 1823 Major Robert Bruce, who was posted in Assam, was told about the existence of tea plants in northeast Assam adjacent to Burma (Dutta A. K., 1992).

In India, tea is planted in the Eastern and Southern sector. Assam dominates the country's tea map by manufacturing more than 50% (Figure-.1.1) of total tea production (Tea Board, 2016).

In recent years, tea industry of Assam has witnessed several structural changes, which includes the emergence of tea cultivation on a small holding, rising competition in the domestic market, the introduction of Bought Leaf Factories (BLFs), (Das, 2010). Tea production in Assam takes place in each big and small scale. Cultivation of tea on the small holding of land is a new thought in India. As per the guideline of Tea Board of India (TBI), small tea growers (STGs) have been outlined as a person or group, who has plantation space up to 10.12 hectares (Hazarika & Borah, 2013). At the present STGs area unit became an awfully vital constituent of tea production because as per the data of 2013, in Assam around 67,179 hectares of tea plantation land under small tea growers' possession (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, 2015).

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Figure 1.2: State wise tea production percentage in India 2014-15 (Source: TBI)

1.3 Background of the research

Tea, unofficially, is said to the national drink of India. India is the major producer and exporter of tea (Tea Board, 2016). The Indian tea industry is one of the key foreign revenue earners for the country. Processing of tea includes different activities; among those plucking of tea costs forty percentages (40%) of the total value of production of tea (Bhattacharyya, 2011). A major part of the workforce in tea business is deployed in plucking activity (pre-processing of tea). During the season time, work mainly suffers throughout pre-processing of tea due to a shortage of labour force.

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In the process of tea manufacturing, there are completely different steps are to be followed and which are planting, maintenance, plucking, processing and final product. Tea leaves harvesting requires experienced eyes and dexterous hands. From the plant Camellia Sinensis, tea leaves are plucked and then taken to the manufacturing plant for processing. The best quality of tea is manufactured solely from single bud along with next two leaves. In Assam, the tea plucking is mainly done by female workers (Bhattacharyya, 2011). It has been observed that an experienced plucker can pluck around 20 to 24 kg of green tea leaves per day.

The cost of labour is the prime input element in the tea industry. However, the wages of the tea garden labourers were not high (Dutta A. K., 1992). The problem of labourer shortage has aggravated in the recent times. Migration of the new generation of tea community youths with higher education and job prospects with higher pay in a different domain is leading to a shortage of employees in the harvesting of tea. Due to the establishment of new small tea gardens, the demand for manpower is increasing day by day, but there is no new source of supply of workforce. Management of the tea gardens is not able to engage adequate numbers of employees for plucking during peak season (Mitra, 2012) (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

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Tea Companies are acquiring huge losses since they are unable to pluck the tea leaves on time. This problem becomes severe during peak season from May to November (Tea Board, 2016). In this scenario; the tea corporations are probing for various effective solutions, and as a result, mechanisation of tea leaf harvesting appeared to be inevitable (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

In Assam to harvest one acre of tea plantation, it takes around forty man-hours (Trace et al., 1990).

Above situation has been aggravated by another socio-economic phenomenon. This is creation and expansion of small tea gardens in Assam. The then Agriculture Minister of Assam in 1978 took initiative and encouraged the youths from the rural areas of Assam to take up tea plantations in the farmhouse and unused land for improving the economic conditions (Bora, 2008). Since then, plantations in the small sector have shown a considerable rise and have spread over various districts- particularly in the Northern and Eastern Assam (Barua P., 2015). As per Tea Board of India, a small tea grower is one who holds land for tea cultivation up to 25 acres.

Several factors helped in consolidating the Small Tea Growers (STG) in Assam. Some of these factors were- (i) skilled workforce from the nearby plantation estates, (ii) available market to sell green tea leaves in the estate tea factories and (iii) advantages of plantation crops over the seasonal agriculture crops.

Setting up of tea plants, popularly known as bought leaf tea factories (BLTFs), by a wealthy section of investors was a part of the expansion of the small tea sector. Currently, there are 177 BLTFs across nine districts of Assam (Government of Assam, 2011). The new BLTFs along with the existing tea factories, however, could not help the STGs as it could not create a fair ground to absorb their produce. The discontents of the STGs over the pricing of green tea leave reflect this. The high fluctuation of price of tea leaves throughout the year, usually un-remunerative, results in the form of dependency condition to sell the green tea leaves (Barua P., 2015).

Data of the survey conducted by Assam government in 2011 reveals that the processing capacity of Assam’s 177 BLTFs is around 260 million kg and total production in the small tea gardens was 391.5 million kg in 2008. Due to this, there was a crisis-like situation for selling leaves. The numbers of STGs are increasing day by day. As per the data collected from Small growers' development directorate (SGDD), Dibrugarh, Assam as on 31st November 2016 the number of STGs has in Assam has reached to 84, 577 numbers (SGDD 2016). The STGs have covered around 78203.35 hectares of land (SGDD 2016).

The members of All Assam STGs' Association (AASTGA) have been contributing about 29% of the total tea produced in Assam, and this is approximately 14% of the total tea production of India.

In this scenario, due to less availability of workforce, some of the regular workers from the big and medium tea gardens work at small tea gardens at a higher wage rate and this increases the absenteeism in the medium & big tea gardens during season time.

Due to above mentioned reasons the parliamentary standing committee on commerce (PSCC), has strongly suggested that mechanisation in the tea harvesting is essential to sustain the tea industry in the coming years (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

Various tea producers' associations of the region have appealed to the chairperson and members of the PSCC to initiate measures that will cause full mechanisation within their business to beat the shortage of labour in the sector (Mitra, 2012). Moreover, Assam Tea Planters' Association, North Eastern Tea Association and Bharatiya Cha Parishad submitted a memo to the chairperson of PSCC stating that automation is the only solution to overcome this labourer shortage problem (Mitra, 2012) (Meghalaya Times, 2012).

If the situation remains unchanged, in the coming years, tea industries of the region may be compelled to wind up their business. Due to this problem, design intervention throughout pre-processing of tea is essential so that effective, efficient & error free devices can be developed to pluck tea (Baisya et al., 2014) (Barkakoty, 2011) (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

1.4 Problem identification

Assam is one of the leading tea producers in the world, and Assam tea is best-known for its quality. However, due to numerous reasons as mentioned earlier, the tea industries of this state are facing a workforce shortage, and this is directly affecting the production. During person-to-person interviews with the professionals from the tea industry, several factors that have led to this workforce shortage were evident to the researchers. Factors like, various government employment generation schemes like MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), where the daily wage of a worker is Rs. 181.69 in comparison to Rs. 169.00 of tea industry, have been attracting garden workers to enrole under the different schemes other than the tea industry. Conjointly, today education is also playing a significant role in declining of the workforce (IANS, 2015). In brief, due to low wages and less facility, low standards of living in garden labour lines, youth of the new generation of tea tribe are no longer interested in working as a garden labourer (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

During the pilot study, it was observed that most of the Small Tea Growers do not have a permanent workforce. During tea leaf plucking season, they hire pluckers from other big gardens at a higher wage rate.

Because of this, the problem of labourer shortage is rising and has become a significant problem faced by the tea industries. Due to a shortage of workforce throughout peak season, production cannot still be increased in spite of availability of pluckable tea leaves in their plantation, and a substantial area under tea cultivation remains unplucked, and this directly affects productivity. A similar situation was faced by tea plantations in other parts of the world too, and this condition was overcome through mechanisation. For sustaining the tea industries of the state, mechanisation appears to be the only suitable solution (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012).

1.5 Pilot study to understand requirement of the tea industries regarding tea plucking activities

A pilot study was carried out in selected tea gardens of Assam with the different stakeholders of tea industry from top management to field workers to explore the possible areas of design intervention in the area of plucking of tea. During this study, it was learned that in Assam, various measures to enhance tea plucking efficiency had been explored both by the research institutes and industry. It was informed that shearing devices (Fig.1.5) and engine powered mechanised tea harvesting machines (Fig.1.6) and battery operated tea plucking machines (Fig. 1.7) were used as pilot projects in the tea gardens of Assam.

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Fig. 1.5: Harvesting of tea with the help of mechanical shear. Source: alarmy.com

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Fig. 1.6: Engine powered mechanised tea harvesting machine. Source: alarmy.com

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Fig. 1.7: Battery powered tea harvesting machine. Source: tradeindia.com

The opinions of various personals from tea industry of Assam regarding these machines are:

1.5.1 Shear plucking

a. Shear plucking results in lower yields at the same harvest interval as compared to manual plucking. Quantities of broken shoots are higher in shear plucking than manual plucking, and this affects the quality of made tea (Burgess, 2006).
b. It has been observed that continuous use of shear affects the bush health and reduce yield at the end of the season. (Saikia, J., & Dutta, 2012).
c. Shear plucking increases productivity only in unpruned fields, not in all areas (Saikia, J., & Dutta, 2012).

1.5.2 Engine powered mechanised tea harvesting machines

During this study, it was found that the industry has reservations about using gasoline powered machines because of - high noise and vibration, pollution, complicated operation, possible pilferage of fuel for using in personal vehicles, two strokes engines where lubricating oil is mixed with the fuel to the extent of 20 - 40 ml/litre. These lubricants do not burn and comes out with exhaust gas and can deposit on the tea leaves and this can deteriorate the quality of made tea, and these machines requiring more than one operator (Fig. 1.6). Two operators to carry the machine and another helper is necessary to handle the plucked tea collection bag.

1.5.3 Battery powered mechanised tea harvesting machines

In some gardens of Assam, battery powered tea harvesting machines were used on a pilot project basis. During the study, it was learned that, though the battery operated tea harvesters are noiseless and non-polluting but their plucking capacity very less in comparison to engine operated machines.

As per the information obtained from this study, it was learned that there is a high demand for an efficient battery operated hand held plucking machine which can be operated by a single worker.

1.6 Research justification

This research becomes relevant due to the shortage of the workforce in the tea sector at present and its trend is rising rapidly. From the pilot study, it was evident that the tea industry in Assam is acquiring losses since the industry is unable to harvest the tea leaves on time due to the acute labour shortage. For the tea industry in Assam to sustain economically, it is essential to increase productivity without requiring increasing workforce, which is dwindling. This will help in containing increasing production cost. In this scenario the tea industry is probing for various effective solutions to tackle the situation. As a result, mechanisation of tea leaf harvesting appeared to be inevitable (Rajya Sabha Secretariat, 2012). Considering this and various contexts of tea gardens in Assam, appropriate design intervention is justified and this research work was undertaken as a response to the call given by various stakeholders.

1.7 Research questions (RQ)

From the pilot study and interactions with various stakeholders in the tea industry, it was found that industry wants design intervention for tea leaves harvesting that can solve the shortage of plucking workforce in the gardens, acceptable to the stakeholders, socially relevant to Assam. Thus, it was found that there exists a scope within the field of tea processing for design intervention. For this following questions were raised:

RQ1: What is the state of mechanisation in the tea harvesting in Assam?

RQ2: Why stakeholders are not using available machines for tea harvesting or What are the shortcomings of existing tea harvesting machines in the context of Assam?

RQ3: How design intervention can impact the tea productivity?

RQ4: How design intervention can be initiated in the tea harvesting?

The answers to these could offer full justification for the research focus in this critical but less investigated subject.

1.8 State of the art review on mechanical harvesting of tea

During literature review, it has been observed that there are limited studies carried out on mechanical tea harvesting in context of tea industries of Assam. However, in other tea producing regions, people have carried out studies on mechanical harvesting of tea.

Since this study is in context of tea garden workers and their workplace in Assam, the literature review has been split into two categories as mentioned below:

a) Socio-economic studies on the origin of the tea tribes in the state, which can throw lights to present shortage of tea workers.
b) Tea harvesting Machine and Method related studies.

Findings from both the studies are elaborately discussed in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 with relevant references.

1.9 Hypothesis

Design intervention through the introduction of an efficient mechanised tea harvesting device will lead to enhanced productivity in harvesting of tea leaves to meet the challenges of shortage of tea garden workers engaged in plucking.

1.10 Aim & Objectives of research

1.10.1 Aim

Aim of this research is the design and development of an appropriate tea harvesting machine in the context of the tea gardens of Assam to compensate the labour shortage throughout peak tea harvesting season. This can lead enhanced productivity and efficiency of tea harvesting process.

1.10.2 Objectives

Objective 1: To explore the possible areas of design intervention in the field of mechanised tea harvesting.

Objective 2: To carry out field study with the stakeholders of selected tea gardens to understand their requirement related to mechanised tea harvesting process.

Objective 3: To design and develop an appropriate tea harvesting machine based on the need of the tea industry as a part of mechanisation of tea harvesting process.

Objective 4: Testing of the newly designed and developed machine to assess its performance and thereby validate it in terms of efficiency etc.

This research becomes relevant due to the shortage of the workforce in the tea sector at present and its trend is rising rapidly. For the tea industry in Assam to sustain economically, it is essential to increase productivity without requiring to increase workforce, which is dwindling. This will help in containing increasing production cost.

1.11 Research paradigm adopted

Research paradigm, in general, is known as a framework of perception, understanding, and belief within one's world or reality (Shrestha, 2009). Bassey, (1990) defined it as “A network of coherent concepts regarding the nature of the world and also the functions of researchers, adhered to by a group of researchers, conditions their thinking, and underpins their research actions.” This is crucial because it determines the event and execution of research. It also affects how the research findings can be analysed (Guba & Lincoln, 1994).

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Fig. 1.8: Research Paradigm (Adopted from eLearn Centre, UO de Catalunya)

1.11.1 Ontology, epistemology, methodology

Ontology, Epistemology, and methodology are interrelated in the research process.

1.11.2 Ontology

Ontology is the beginning of all research. It is mainly associated with belief about reality. “What is true?” or “what is there to know?” philosophy. Ontologically research can be divided into two subgroups: Realism and Relativism.

Realism is based on ‘one truth' concept. There is only one truth exists and with measurable objectives.

In relativism, it is a belief that there are multiple realities exists and the truth evolves and changes. Ontologically this research is positioned in “relativism.”

1.11.3 Epistemology

It is derived from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (reasons), it helps in how to know it or how to get the knowledge on the subject of research or how to discover new things related to the researched topic. Here knowledge is discovered through objective measures. Ontological beliefs will dictate epistemological beliefs.

Epistemology can be divided into further two sub-classes: ethic approach and emic approach.

In ethic approach, truth can be found from the study of the subject or system from the observations/information collected from the observations/studies carried out from the outside of the system.

The emic approach is the subjective approach for knowing the reality. In this method, inside view of the research problem is taken into account; in brief, it is an interactive approach. Personal interviews, questionnaire etc. are carried out in this approach (Shrestha, 2009).

This research is designed with this approach. Information will be collected through interviews, feedback, questionnaires, field observations and so forth to get a realistic view to know the requirement of the tea industries of Assam to overcome the production loss during the harvesting season and to find out a suitable solution to solve the problem.

1.11.4 Methodology

Methodology deals with “how the knowledge can be discovered in a systematic way”. People often misinterpret “Methodology” with method; but both are different in nature. Methodology guides in data gathering techniques like interviews, survey, document review and so forth.

This research will be based on Mixed Methods where there will be a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. According to Erica Loop (2014), this type of methodology uses several different measures, which include both contextual understanding like interviews or observations along with facts or statistics. By adopting this method, we will be able to investigate our research problem on multiple levels. This will help to gain different views and a comprehensive look at the research topic. A mixed methodology knits more than one philosophical perspective, allowing for the integration of various theories and ideas (Loop, 2014).

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Fig. 1.9: Building blocks of research paradigm and their interrelation. Source: Hay, 2002 Ontology * Epistemology * Methodology * Methods

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Fig. 1.10: Research Strategies

1.12 Research approach

As mentioned earlier, the aim of analysis is to work out how the productivity of tea harvesting can increase without increasing the production cost and deploying additional workforce through design intervention.

The research can be administered with a pragmatic approach in seeking out an acceptable solution to the matter.

This study adopts the human-centred design approach, for design and development and implementation of appropriate technology in harvesting of tea.

1.13 The product development lifecycle

Various stages which will be adopted during the development of the tea harvesting machine are as follows:

1.13.1 Analysis

To design and develop this new tea harvesting machine, a proper product development approach is to be adopted.

In any organisation, there may exist plenty of ideas for a new product, but once it has selected the best among the ones available, the next step is to start researching the market. This will help the organisation to see if there is any likelihood that this type of product will be in demand, and also of the fact as what specific features need to be developed for meeting the needs of a potential market. The various stages of product development processes are discussed below.

1.13.2 Concept generation

Any product, before introduced or developed, begins with an idea. In some cases, this might be very simple, as the new product may be based on something similar that already exists. In other situations, the product may turn out to be something revolutionary and unique. In fact, many of the leading manufacturers will have a separate department that focuses only on the task of coming up with new innovative design.

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Fig. 1.11: New product development stages. Source: Product lifecycle stages, 2013

1.13.3 Design

In this phase, the product is first designed as per the most suitable concept available.

This involves 3D modelling, Virtual testing, technical feasibility study, material selection and so forth.

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Fig. 1.12: Different phases in human-centred design. Adopted from (Nielsen, 1994)

1.13.4 Development

After concept generation, next comes product development. The first models or the prototypes are gradually modified through different stages of designing and manufacturing before the finished product, which the customers will eventually buy, is zeroed down.

1.13.5 Testing

The testing phase is a critical phase. Most manufacturers and companies prior to the official launch of any new product in the market by investing a significant sum of money on production and promotion will test the same with a small group of prospective consumers/users. This will help them in making it sure that they have a viable product that will be profitable, and any further changes that need to made prior to its launch are also made.

In this research once the design is completed, it will be prototyped and the newly designed machine will be tested functionally. Its performance and efficiency will be required to be evaluated through actual field trials. For this, five numbers of tests are planned to find out:

i. Difference in area harvested using the designed tea harvesting machine in unit time and area harvested by hand plucking by the same worker in the same time.
ii. Difference in time required to harvest a unit area of 100 m2 by a worker using the machine and by hand plucking.
iii. Difference in quantity of tea leaves plucked in unit time using the machine and by hand plucking.
iv. Hand grip strength testing to understand the effect of using the tea plucking machine on the workers.
v. Documentation of feedback from workers, who will be exposed to the machine to understand their experiences while operating the machine through a questionnaire and then to carry out Nordic body parts discomfort mapping. A questionnaire will be provided to each worker for this purpose and the sample questionnaire is provided at Appendix C.

To interpret the data collected with the help of proposed tests, statistical methods will be used to calculate mean, standard deviation and variance for group statistics. Levene's test for equality and ‘t'-test for equality of mean for independent samples will be conducted.

Some common statistical procedures assume that variances of the populations from which different samples are drawn are equal. Levene's test assesses this assumption. It tests the null hypothesis that the population variances are equal (called homogeneity of variance or homoscedasticity). In the other word this test is used to test whether two or more population variances are equal. For each scenario that is set up, two simulations are run. One simulation estimates the significance level and the other estimates the power (NCSS, 2014).

A t-test is an analysis of two populations means through the use of statistical examination; a t-test with two samples is commonly used with small sample sizes, testing the difference between the samples when the variances of two normal distributions are not known (University of Connecticut, 2014).

The objective of any statistical test is to determine the likelihood of a value in a sample, given that the null hypothesis is true. A t-test is typically used in case of small samples and when the test statistic of the population follows a normal distribution (Research Optimus, 2013).

1.13.6 Modification / analysis

Testing of the product with prospective customers will provide the company/manufacturer certain feedbacks and based on these feedbacks the manufacturers make necessary adjustments to the product. They further decide on the ways they are going to launch it in the market. With ‘real’ customers, providing genuine feedback to the companies about the product, these companies, on the other hand, will be able to make some strategic decisions that will turn out to be crucial to the product’s success. The price of the product and marketing strategies are some of the important decisions that these feedbacks will help the companies to take.

1.13.7 Retesting

During initial testing in the real environment, there may be some unforeseen problems which may arise, and in this phase, these problems are taken care of and then the product is tested again.

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1.13.8 Final release

Going through all the stages above, when a product makes its way to the new product development stage, the most important step left is successful introduction of it to the market. Moreover, once this is done, good product lifecycle management will ensure the manufacturer makes the most of all their effort and investment.

1.14 The outline of the thesis framework

The thesis is structured into the following chapters.

Chapter 1 titled Tea Industry in Assam: Present Context, introduces the background and motivation behind this research work. The research issues were discussed and placed in the content of their multidisciplinary background of tea industries in Assam. Aims and objectives of the thesis are highlighted. The boundaries and scope of the research are laid out along with definitions and taxonomy. Summaries of all the chapters are outlined.

Chapter 2 titled Tea Industry in Assam: Socio-economic and Demographic Situation provides state of the art review on the origin and socio-cultural elements of tea tribe, present problems related to manpower in tea industries.

Chapter 3 titled Tea Plantation and Tea Manufacturing Process describes tea plantation and production system in Assam. Different stages of tea cultivation and various types of tea are covered in this chapter.

Chapter 4 titled Mechanical Harvesting of Tea, covers study of various types of tea harvesting machines, mechanical harvesting methodology, advantages and drawback of the currently available tea harvesting machines etc. to arrive at requirement of an appropriate tea harvesting machine in the context of tea gardens of Assam.

Chapter 5 titled Concept Generation, Design and Prototyping covers concept generation of an appropriate battery powered single operator tea harvesting machine, its detail design and final prototyping including functionality test. Different components of the proposed machine were designed and manufactured and assembled to construct the prototype.

Chapter 6 titled Design Validation of the Newly Designed Machine covers operational testing of the prototype through actual field trial in a tea garden for validation of the design and research hypothesis through the results of field trials. Details of various test conducted is also covered here. Statistical Analysis data collected in the experiments and discussion on the field experiments and the methodology adopted are described in details.

Chapter 7 titled Discussions, Conclusion and Recommendations covers consolidated findings of the research, contribution and limitations of the current research. Future scope of work- too have been presented which opens up avenues of future work for further development of the concept and it's more applications. Recommendation for application of the findings of the research in the tea insdutry of Assam is part of this chapter.

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