Reengineering and test development of an agave planting machine

Abstract

Mexico is the largest producer of tequila in the world due, in large part, to the fact that the agave plant is endemic to the country. The most used variety to produce the drink is Tequilana Weber and the state of Jalisco is the largest producer of agave, with 73 thousand ha, followed by Guanajuato, with 16 thousand ha and Nayarit with 12 thousand ha, in 2020. Among the main tequila manufacturing companies is Tequilera Sauza, whose inventory of agave in the field is close to 7 thousand ha. One of the tasks that most labor demands the cultivation is the transplantation in the ground of seat for the development of the plant, activity that is carried out manually; as part of its processes of technification and innovation and in order to find alternatives to the shortage of labor in the field, this company built a prototype of a machine that allows the transplantation of children, this presented problems in its operation, which led to a reengineering, which consisted of a process adjustments and modifications in some of its most important mechanisms. After making the adjustments, field planting tests were carried out, in which the percentage of plants placed correctly in the seating ground was improved from 50 to 86% on average, and 90% efficiency has been reached, a recommended value for planting or planting machines. It was also found that the percentage of skating is close to 20%, which causes the distance between plants to be 20cm above 1m, a recommended value in the planting framework. As a result of this work, it was detected that it is necessary to continue with the adjustments to increase the efficiency in the plantation and modify the transmission system so that the value of 1m between plants is reached.