Manual cattle handling systems are widely used in South Africa. A literature review
and consultations were conducted with both producers and equipment manufactures, to
assess the advantages and disadvantages of various cattle handling systems with the
objective of developing a more efficient system that incorporates automation,
electronics and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. In this study an
automated, selective sorting (RFID) based cattle handling system was developed and
assessed as an alternative to the widely adopted conventional manual management
system practiced in South Africa. The system is still under research and not yet
available on the market.
This document describes the research and development process undertaken which
included planning, literature review, consultation, design, fabrication, evaluation and
discussions. The RFID based system developed consists of manual, semi- and fully
automated components in the form of a neck-body clamp with through access, flow
control double split gates and a weigh-identification-sort system. For the ease of
comparison the system was developed with a manual by-pass as a control to compare
the automated and manual systems in terms of establishment cost, handling duration
including identification, weighing and sorting, and operator and animal stress levels
which impact on business profitability and system efficiency. Both the manual by-pass
and automated RFID-based systems were evaluated.
The automated system resulted in reduced handling duration, operational costs and
handling stress on both operator and the animal whilst enabling selective automated
sorting. The infrastructure was designed to have a capacity to handle 500 animals per
day with 5 handlers and a capital investment of R200 000 was required with an
operational cost of R25 000 per month.
After incorporating RFID, electronics and automation of the system it was established
that, on average, cattle handling duration was reduced by 63%, incorrect sorting was
reduced by 5.5%, man hours were reduced by 70% with 23% and 14% less fatigue and
stress levels to the handler and the animals respectively, whilst achieving efficient
selective sorting. A cost benefit analysis was undertaken for both systems with the aim
of assessing and determining the most profitable system. An assumption was made that
the cash flow pattern remains uniform for both systems over the entire evaluation
period. This revealed that the introduction of RFID based technology as an alternative
to a manual based system results in an increase in business profitability by 20% and
shorten the payback period by 5 years. Although there is still need to further
investigate the performance parameters under different environments, it can be
concluded that the introduction of RFID, electronics and automation improves the
overall system technical efficiency by 32% whilst enabling efficient selective handling. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/9641 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Mutenje, Tendai Justin. |
| Contributors | Smithers, Jeffrey Colin., Simalenga, T.E. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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