Bridging generations: design guidelines for energy-efficient thermal machinery in the food industry

Many traditional manufacturing businesses are undergoing generational succession, where younger owners inherit factories established by previous generations. While numerous engineering methods exist for improving individual machines, there is a lack of a systematic framework to help new-generation owners identify, prioritise and solve operational problems while balancing modern engineering practices with the experience of senior stakeholders. This study proposes an industrial transformation framework integrating an Industrial Maslow's hierarchy of needs, product design and development (PDD), quality function deployment (QFD) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The framework prioritises factory problems before applying engineering design methods to address the highest-priority issue. A traditional tapioca flake starch factory was used as a case study, where the labor-intensive hypocaust drying process was identified as the critical problem. Based on stakeholder interviews and customer requirements, two indirect rotary drum dryer configurations were developed and evaluated using CFD. Design A achieved better temperature uniformity, whereas Design B showed slightly higher exhaust efficiency. Considering the overall design objectives, Design A was selected. The primary contribution of this work is the proposed industrial transformation framework, rather than the dryer itself, providing a systematic approach that can be adapted to traditional manufacturing industries undergoing modernisation and generational succession.