In the era of industrialization, automatic machines become an integral part of human life. These machines help to reduce the time needed to do a specific task. Nowadays, human life becomes more competitive and faster than the previous. Automation brought about by technology has saved human effort and time to a large extent. Slicing vegetables are a risky and time-consuming task in our busy life. This project is aimed at solving above stated problems by introducing a special product named Automatic Vegetable Chopper. This chopper is mainly designed to reduce human effort and make the job of chopping vegetables much easier and faster. Its main features are fully automated, easily portable, less power consumption and changeable stainless, sharp blade, etc. This product is designed and established by following a structured product design process and with the help of a board of design engineers. Product planning, customer needs identifying, product specification, concept screening, concept scoring and bill of materials are tools that mainly used to accomplish this task. Finally, this paper also suggests various techniques and opportunities of product planning in manufacturing industries as future recommendations.

In Bangladesh, the role of Distributed Generation (DG) is increasingly being recognized as a supplement and an alternative to large conventional central power supply. The government and many non-governmental organizations have tried to comprehend and strived to address the problem of energy through promoting Solar Home Systems (SHSs) in off-grid areas. Though centralized economic system that solely depends on cities is hampered due to energy deficiency, the use of solar energy in cities is never been tried widely due to technical inconvenience and high installment cost. To mitigate these problems, this paper proposes an optimized design of grid-tied PV system without storage which is suitable for Bangladesh as it requires less installment cost and supplies residential loads when the grid power is unavailable. This paper also analyzes the implementation outcome of integrating this grid-tied PV system in grid connected areas, especially in the capital of Bangladesh.

This present research aimed to investigate the effect of slice thickness and concentration of the osmotic solution on mass transfer kinetics, the color profile of osmotically dehydrated pineapple slices, and product quality characteristics of osmotically dehydrated microwave-dried (ODMWD) products. Three slice thicknesses (0.5, 1, and 1.5 cm) and three concentrations of osmotic solution (40, 50, and 60 °Brix) were used. The mass transfer kinetics (moisture reduction behaviour, weight loss, solid gain), physicochemical properties (color, TSS, pH, titratable acidity, vitamin C, and total sugar), and total phenolic content of pineapple slices were analyzed. During osmotic dehydration, the moisture reduction behaviour of 0.5 cm slices was faster in all osmotic solutions, whereas water loss and solid gain were higher for all slices treated with 60 °Brix. Both slice thickness and concentration of the solution significantly affected the color of OD pineapple slices. For ODMWD products, total soluble solids (TSS), pH, ascorbic acid content, total sugar, and total phenolic content increased for all slice thicknesses with an increase in osmotic solution concentration, whereas titratable acidity exhibited the opposite result. The rehydration ratio was higher in 0.5 cm slices for all solution concentrations. According to the finding, pineapple fruits can be dehydrated by using 60 °Brix solution concentration with 0.5 cm slices for making dehydrated pineapple fruit, and osmotic dehydration followed by microwave drying of pineapple fruit could be used for value-added processing products.

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This study is aimed at investigating the moisture sorption behavior and thin-layer drying kinetics of local sweet potato sada (LSPS) variety slices. The sweet potato tubers were sliced at 3, 5, and 7 mm and dried at temperatures of 45, 55, and 62°C at a constant air velocity of 0.6 m/sec in a laboratory-scale cabinet dryer. The BET (Brunauer, Emmet, and Teller) and GAB (Guggenheim-Anderson-De Bore) models were applied to fit the sorption data. Fick’s diffusion equation was used to calculate the drying rate constant and effective moisture diffusivity. Our current result reveals that LSPS exhibited an isotherm with a sigmoid (type II) shape, and the GAB model was more goodness of fit than the BET model to clarify the adsorption isotherm of LSPS. The drying time increased with increasing slice thickness but reduced with increasing drying temperature. The drying rate constant for thin-layer drying decreased with an increase in slice thickness but increased with increasing drying temperature. The loading density with two different shapes (French cut and cube cut) also affected the drying rate constant, which decreased with the increase in loading density. Using statistical parameters, five thin-layer drying models were applied to fit the drying data. The findings indicated that the logarithmic model for 45-55°C and the Page model for 62°C were the most suitable models for explaining the drying behavior of LSPS slices. The effective moisture diffusivity increased with increasing slice thickness and drying temperature, ranging from 7.10 × 10 − 11 to 1.55 × 10 − 10  m2/s over the temperature range studied. The activation energy also increased with increasing slice thickness, and the values were 5.55 and 7.39 kJ/mol for 3 and 5 mm slices, respectively. The findings suggested that slice thickness, drying temperature, and sample loading density on cabinet dryer trays affect the drying kinetics of sweet potato slices.