EFFECTS OF SOAKING PROCESS AND ROTATING METHOD ON EDIBLE BIRD NEST CLEANING TIME AND CLEANLINESS

Abstract

The paper examines the effects of rotation and soaking processes on the cleaning time and cleanliness of edible bird nests (EBN). During the breeding season, species of swifts known as Aerodramus secrete salivary glands to build a nest that humans harvest. To be sold, the harvested EBN must be cleaned. The raw EBN cleaning process consists of four operations: soaking, cleaning, reshaping, and drying. This paper focuses on the cleaning of raw EBN. In general, harvested EBN is treated manually using tweezers. However, this procedure is time-consuming, as cleaning one EBN can take about an hour. Therefore, several mechanical cleaning methods were required to clean raw EBN to improve cleaning time and cleanliness. This research aims to improve the two mechanical cleaning methods, rotating and soaking. The Taguchi Method is used to design and optimize the overall parameter setup. The selected optimized parameter set will then be tested to determine the best parameter sets. For the current study, the EBN wetting process has time settings of 12, 18, and 24 hours. The rotating method's time settings were 30, 45, and 60 seconds. The soaking time can be set to 2, 4, or 6 minutes. Each of these parameters is thoroughly tested to determine the best-optimized one. The experiment is then carried out by combining the two parameters chosen in a sequence to determine the cleanliness of the raw EBN.  method of 60 seconds.