Efficiency and health protection of employees at Alcobaça apples and Oeste Rocha pears cultivation

A high productivity is crucial in the rural production in order to reduce exploitation costs and to increase the international competitiveness of the products. Both products (apples and pears) have to be carefully collected by hand in order to protect the fruits from internal and external defects. Traditionally the collecting of fruits was performed using mobile ladders (extension ladders and double sided step ladders). The efficiency of the collection process was very low and the risk to accidents and health problems to the workers was very high. Simultaneously to reduce workload on the employees, to increase the efficiency of the process and to increase the quality of the products  by simplifying the collection process were the main objectives to achieve by the producers.