APPLICATION OF HOUSE OF QUALITY IN THE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF BATIK WAX EXTRUDER AND PRINTER

Abstract

Malaysian batik production is dominated by two techniques known as hand-drawn batik, or batik tjanting, and stamp batik, or batik block. In comparison to batik block, the more popular batik tjanting takes a longer time to produce. A Standardized Nordic Questionnaire (SNQ) for musculoskeletal symptom examination involving batik artisans in Kelantan and Terengganu identified high rates of musculoskeletal disorders in respondents due to their working posture during the batik tjanting process. It was also observed that the number of workers and artisans willing to participate in the traditional batik industry is on the decline. These problems have led to a systematic Quality Functional Deployment approach to facilitate the decision-making process for the conceptual design of an automatic batik printer. In this study, house of quality (HOQ) was applied to identify the critical features for a batik printer based on the voice of the customer (VOC). A survey done to rate the importance of VOC using an 8-point Likert scale revealed that the batik practitioners topmost priority for the batik printer feature is the 'ability to adjust and maintain the temperature of wax' (17.54%) while the non-batik practitioners chose 'ability to deliver a variety of complex designs' (15.94%). The least required feature for the batik printer was related to the size of the batik printer.  The mapping between customer requirements (VOC) and technical requirements identified that the extruder design (21.3%), the heating element (18%), and nozzle diameter (17.8%) were the most critical components for the batik printer. Several conceptual designs of the extrusion unit, cartesian-based batik printer, and 2D image conversion using open-sourced software were proposed at the end of this work.

ABSTRAK: Pengeluaran batik Malaysia telah didominasi oleh dua teknik yang dikenali sebagai batik lukisan-tangan (batik canting) dan batik cap (batik blok). Sebagai perbandingan, batik canting yang popular mengambil masa lebih lama bagi dihasilkan. Soal Selidik Nordic Standad (SNQ) bagi meneliti gejala muskuloskeletal melibatkan tukang batik di Kelantan dan Terengganu telah menunjukkan persamaan kadar muskuloskeletal yang tinggi pada postur badan semasa bekerja canting batik. Bilangan pekerja yang terlibat dalam industri tradisional batik ini turut terjejas. Masalah-masalah ini telah mengarah kepada kaedah Pengerahan Fungsi Kualiti bagi membantu proses membuat keputusan dalam rekaan konsep pencetak batik automatik. Kajian ini telah mengadaptasi Kualiti Rumah (HOQ) bagi mengesan ciri-ciri kritikal pada pencetak batik berdasarkan suara pelanggan (VOC). Kaji selidik telah dilakukan bagi menilai kepentingan VOC menggunakan skala Likert 8-poin. Didapati keutamaan yang diperlukan oleh 17.54% ahli batik adalah; ciri pencetak batik ini perlu mempunyai ‘keupayaan dalam menyelaras dan menetapkan suhu lilin’, manakala sebanyak 15.94% bukan ahli batik memilih ‘keupayaan pencetak ini harus berjaya menghasilkan pelbagai rekaan yang kompleks’.   Ciri yang kurang diberi tumpuan adalah berkaitan saiz pencetak batik. Persamaan antara kehendak pelanggan (VOC) dan kehendak teknikal dalam mengenal pasti komponen-komponen penting bagi pencetak batik adalah rekaan penyemperit (21.3%), elemen pemanas (18%), dan diameter nozel (17.8%). Pelbagai rekaan konsep bagi unit penyemperit, pencetak batik canting, dan imej konversi 2D menggunakan perisian sumber terbuka telah dicadangkan di bahagian akhir kajian ini.