Design of a harvesting device for oil palms / Md. Khairul Jamlli Khalid and Azman Ayub

Mechanisation in the oil palm industry becomes a critical issue in plantations since the increasing of labour cost. Various parties participate in the design and development of mechanisms that can overcome this problem including the government sectors, private sectors and overseas consultants. The development of harvesting device started early in 1983, introduced a various concept of harvesting. Most of the designs did not achieve the performance required. A few concepts that performed well, were however during infield testing are not economically at that time. The total operation cost is still found very high, until nowadays there are no such design that fulfils the requirement.