Operational performance in aquaculture: A case study of the manual harvesting of cultivated mussels

Abstract

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production sectors in recent decades. Such rapid development emphasizes the need to adopt more efficient production strategies while simultaneously increasing productivity and sustainability. Monitoring of production is an important strategy to achieve process efficiency. Therefore, we conducted a time and motion study using operational performance indicators to evaluate mussel harvesting on a commercial marine farm in Southern Brazil. We analyzed the operations of mussel sea withdrawal and disaggregation, which are widely used by local farmers but demanding for workers to perform. Mussel sea withdrawal and disaggregation had standard times of 133.7 and 266.7 s, respectively, for one mussel rope; operational production capacities of 0.16 and 0.08 kg s−1, respectively; operational efficiencies of 100 and 31.6%, respectively; time efficiencies of 56.1 and 34.7%, respectively, rework percentages of 0 and 65%, respectively; and percentages of damaged products of 0 and 3.4%, respectively. These parameters indicate low operational performance. The approach used in this study also allowed us to identify process wastes and propose ways to eliminate or mitigate them, with the aim of adopting more efficient work methods.