Portable Cordless Slaughter Hand Tools

Summary

​Background
The meat industry uses trimming machines for removing fat from carcasses and meat from bones during the processing stages. These are primarily based on flexible drive shaft or pneumatic powered devices and are used in fat and meat trimming and dehiding operations.
In 2002, a New Zealand company, IBEX Industries Ltd, purchased Disco Drives, a developer and manufacturer of meat processing equipment.  This provided IBEX with the capability to become a meat industry product design, development and manufacturing company, complementing their existing meat industry product and system distribution business.
Research & Facilitated Adoption
In 2002, MLA was approached by IBEX to develop highly efficient portable DC electric power tool for use within the meat industry, based on a battery rather than being powered by flexible drive shafts or pneumatics.
The tools drive system was to be able to take modular heads for a wide range of applications which include trimming, dehiding, skinning, sawing etc.
Development, trials, intellectual property protection and ergonomic assessment was funded via a variety of projects, primarily through the MLA Donor Company.
Outcomes
A DC based hand tool was successfully trialled in 2003-04, but still using an electric cable rather than a battery, as the technology status of batteries did not allow sufficient power to weight ratios to be viable.
IBEX continues to offer the DC based tool commercially, but sales have been less than expected despite the advantages of the tool such as reduced spare parts usage, increased yields, better serviceability and more up time.  This is primarily because the electric unit is more expensive that the previous pneumatic based tools.