Approach to Improve Edible Bird Nest Quality & Establishing Better Bird Nest Cleaning Process Facility through Best Value Approach

Abstract

Edible bird nest industries have existed for more than a century; however, it has been going through a few revolution cycles. As harvesting EBN from the natural habitat in the dark and dim limestone caves to the modern purpose-built swiftlet farms, the quality and quantity of the bird nests have risen to a new level. This success of changing the habitat of swiftlet colonies is revolutionary because the ease of rescuing bird nests from life-threatening experiences to a safe environment has improved. Furthermore, with a synthetic environment, the quality of bird nests has improved with decreased levels of pollution and the colony`s population increased due to better growth along with protection from predators. On the downside, edible bird nest cleaning processes experienced very few changes since the discovery of edible bird nests. The method of cleaning remains unchanged. Several machines have been introduced to replace human labor and the results are either ineffective or undesirable. In this study, existing practices were observed and analyzed by identifying the area of opportunity for improvement. A new proposed method has been implemented to enhance the quality and nutrients of the bird nests. The experimental methodology has been employed to analyzes a set of samples obtained from both cleaning methods. The results show a smaller expansion rate under the current method in processing edible bird nest; hence, the possibility of nutrients preserved has increased by 30% under the new method. The percentage of crude protein concentration in the newly improved method was 50.25% whereas in the traditional method, it was only 31.16%. This clearly indicates the difference of 19.09% nutrient lost between the new improved method and traditional cleaning method.