© IEOM Society Design of a small scale cereal packaging machine suitable for developing countries Tawanda Mushiri D.Eng. Student; University of Johannesburg, Department of Mechanical Engineering, P. O. Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, South Africa. tawanda.mushiri@gmail.com Lecturer; University of Zimbabwe, Department of Mechanical Engineering, P.O Box MP167, Mt Pleasant, Harare Charles Mbohwa Professor and Supervisor; University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park Bunting Road Campus, P. O. Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, Room C Green 5, Department of Quality and Operations Management, Johannesburg, South Africa. cmbohwa@uj.ac.za Abstract Many food shortages which are being encountered in developing countries are due to lack of effective packaging which results in food loss. Packaging machines manufactured in developed countries are highly automated which make them incompatible with the capacities handled in developing countries. Considering a number of concepts, the selected one is a small scale cereal packaging machine which has a capability of sealing 1kg of any cereal per minute. Keywords Packaging, cereal, machine, auto cad, design, developing countries 1.0: Introduction Packaging is the science, art, and technology of protecting products for distribution, storage, sale and use (Soroka, 2002). It helps to ensure quality and safe conveyance. According to Stewart (1995) pointed out that the basic function of food packaging was to preserve product integrity by protecting the food against possible damage from climate, bacteriological and transit hazards. Packaging machinery is one of the most helpful machines in production services since it is essential to most food industries and other companies. Packaging mostly done by small scale entrepreneurs through the use of conventional methods is very laborious and time consuming. Many may wonder how many packets someone using a simple balancing weight to weigh the contents and a lighting candle to seal the package will produce at the end of the day. This research presents an attempt to design a packaging machine for a small scale businesses in developing countries as a cheaper and more efficient alternative of food packaging machinery. 1.1: Background Many leading packaging machinery manufacturers which have global sales and facility networks at their disposal are focussing on producing supplementary automated and faster machines which are incompatible for the capacities handled by small scale producers in developing countries. At the same time these machines are sold at high cost, though purchasing them may not be an issue but after sales service and maintenance is also a limiting factor (Manalili et al, 2011). A packaging machine should reduce time and labour inputs, increase the rate of production and consequently improve profit returns for the benefit of small scale producers and also for the reduction of cereal losses since packing improves safety and quality. Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Operations Excellence and Service Engineering Orlando, Florida, USA, September 10-11, 2015