Automatic satay machine is thrice as fast

TANJUNG MALIM: A team of researchers from the Sultan Azlan Shah Polytechnic has invented an automatic satay skewering machine for use by the small-and-medium enterprise (SME) sector.

The researchers from the polytechnic’s mechanical engineering and electrical engineering departments spent eight months in the research and development of the project.

They were led by a researcher from the mechanical engineering department, Ameeruz Kamal Abd Wahid, together with lecturers Mai Noor Asiah Tan Zalillah, Abdul Hafiz Abd Hamid and Mohd Baharuddin Mohd Yusof and assisted by several students.

Ameeruz Kamal said the Automatic Satay Slicing Machine could cut chicken meat and thread it into skewers thrice as fast as conventional methods.

“About 36 chicken satay (sticks) can be produced within two to three minutes and the machine is very easy to operate,” Ameeruz Kamal said.

On the methods of producing the satay, Ameeruz Kamal said chunks of boneless chicken marinated with spices are placed in a special container to be sliced before skewering.

For the project, he said they were given a RM50,000 grant from the Public-Private Research Network to help the owner of Hazal Enterprise in Perlis which produces the company’s frozen product.

According to Ameeruz Kamal, besides providing a cleaner, more systematic and controlled production process, the machine also guaranteed the quality and durability of the company’s product.

“With only minimal electricity consumption, the machine can be operated by only one worker,” he said, adding that he hoped in the future, more SME entrepreneurs would use the machine. — Bernama