Implementing process improvement and automatic systems in a small ornamental plant nursery farm

Abstract

Process improvement and automatic systems were implemented to a small-scaled ornamental plant nursery farm primarily to tackle the problems of increasing labor cost and turnover. The implementation of automatic systems came with issues different from that in the large-scale farming. A framework formulated from various approaches was applied as the guideline for specialists to work effectively together with the owner and workers in the implementation. Improvements were made to most activities in the nursery process. The irrigating and replanting operations were improved further by changing into fully-automatic and semi-automatic systems, respectively. The solutions were simple, economic, and easy to adapt. The labor time for the original production capacity was reduced by 66%. Other improvements including transportation time, production capacity, working condition, and land utilization were also realized. The improved replanting cycle time and land utilization led to 47% increase in the production capacity. The details of implementation were discussed and the critical issues were addressed.