International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management

29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1

2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR SELECTING OF

MEAT PRODUCT PACKAGING

Tengku Khairil Ahsyar1, Kudang Boro Seminar2 *), Irman Hermadi3, Nugraha Edhi Suyatma4
13
Department of Computer Science, Bogor Agricultural University
2
Department of Mechanical and Bio-system Engineering, Bogor Agricultural University
4
Department of Food Science and Technology, Bogor Agricultural University
E-mail: 2 seminarkudangboro@gmail.com*)

Abstract
Efforts to maintain the quality of meat products can not be separated from the selection of appropriate packaging
with the characteristics of the meat product itself. The amount of meat characteristics and packaging properties will
slow down and complicate the decision-making process when choosing the appropriate packaging. Decision support
system is a system that makes it easy and quick to make decisions. This research aims to develop a decision support
system for determining the appropriate packaging of meat products. A C4.5 decision tree algorithm was used in
generating the rules to determine the meat product packaging. Stages of the research include problem identification,
literature review, data collection, meat and packaging analysis, system requirement analysis, building the system
design, system implementation, and testing. The result of this research is a web-based decision support system for
selecting of meat packaging using PHP programming language and MySQL database. The system has been
developed to consist some features including user profiles, selecting of meat product packaging, a list of meat
products packaging, a list of meat product parameters, and user comments.

Keywords: Decision Support System, Decision Tree, Meat Product, Packaging, Web Base

INTRODUCTION freshness and extend shelf life during the distribution

Some problems that often arise in the
packaging of meat products are difficulty and
inaccuracy in determining appropriate packaging
options according to type and condition the product to
be packaged. Incorrect decision of packaging option
can cause quality loss, physical damage, spoilage, and
poisoning of the packed products, especially
perishable and time sensitive food products (Walsh &
Kerry, 2002). Commercially it can degrade food
safety and economic value of the trade products
(LIPTAN 2002). In food industries, food packaging is
one the critical processes that must be well ensured to
preserve product quality, safety, appearance and
attractiveness. One way to maintain the quality of
fresh and processed meat products in order to stay
awake ranging from post-harvest to the consumer is to
do the packaging.
The purpose of packaging is to protect,
communications, convenience, containment and as
attributes of the product to be packaged (Robertson,
2010). In addition, the packaging can also maintain
process (Yam et al, 2005). Packaging design that
combines elements and design guidelines are oriented
to the environment, also play an important role in
informing and directing consumers to keep buying and
consuming food in a sustainable manner (Barmaki,
2012).
The increasing packaging types and options
nowadays also necessitates more systematic and
precise way to select the best packaging option for a
certain type of product. Decision-making processes are
often faced with a wide range of unique conditions,
uncertain, dynamic, time-consuming and complex
nature (Turban et al, 2007; Marimin & Maghfiroh,
2010; Wu, 2010). This paper discusess the
development and implementation of a decision
support system (DSS) to ease and enhance the decision
making process for selecting the best packaging
option for meat products.

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 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

FACTORS AND TYPES OF MEAT Based on the availability and usability of packaging
options for meat products, possible packaging types
PACKAGING and categories have been established (Table 2).
There are three categories of meat products:
fresh meat, minimally processed meat and processed Table 2 Types of meat products packaging.
meat, each of which has different characteristics.
No Packaging Types Sub-packaging
These characteristics critically determine packaging
1 Can Can
options that will be applied to meat products. Other
2 Film Overwrapped trays,
factors that determine the selection packaging options
Shrink film
include acidity (pH), water activity (Aw), temperature,
3 Pouch Standup pouch, Flat
preservatives, and the shelf life of meat products
pouch, Side gusseted
(Lawrie, 2003). A selection of packaging option that
pouch, Three side sealed
does not comply with the characteristics of the meat
pouch, Block bottom
products will cause undesired quality defects in the
pouch
quality of meat products, and thus reducing the shelf
4 Alumunium Foil Wrinkled walled tray,
life of meat products. However, based on the expert
(Alfoil) Smooth walled tray
judgment, two factors were excluded since these two
5 Vacuum Vacuum rigid, Vacuum
factors do not influence the selection of packaging
skin, Vacuum flexible
types. Table 1 summarizes the parameters used to
6 MAP MAP flexible, MAP
determine the best selection of a packaging type.
rigid
MAP: Modified Atmosphere Packaging
Table 1 Parameters of meat products
Parameters Value Referring to Tables 1 and 2, a decision tree was
Temperature Room, Cold, Frozen constructed to be used as inference engine for selecting
Aw Dried (0.6), Slightly Wet (0.6- the best packaging type for certain meat products.
0.80, Wet (>0.8)
Shelf life < 1 Week, 1 Week to 1 Month, >1
Month to 6 Month, > 6 Month

temperature

room

shelf-life cold frozen

< 1 week > 6 month

> 1 month to 6 month
aw Can shelf-life Vacuum
1 week to 1 month
aw
Pouch > 6 month
dried or
slightly wet 1 week to 1 month
wet dried
slightly wet or wet > 1 month to 6 month

Film Pouch Pouch Alfoil MAP Alfoil Vacuum

Figure 1. The decision tree for packaging selection.

SYTEM DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION (Satzinger et al, 2010). It represents all the processes
System Design that occur in the system. The context diagram was then
decomposed into sub-processes (DFD Level 1)
A context diagram is used to describe the
comprising the whole system (Figure 3). Process 6 in
relationship of input-process-output between the
DFD Level 1 (Figure 3) utilizes the inference engine for
systems with the outside environment (Figure 2)
*)
Corresponding author 18
 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

packaging selection based on the decision tree shown in packaging system was represented using Entity
Figure 1. The data entities required for the meat Relationship Diagram (ERD) as shown in Figure 4.
login login
user profile user profile
meat product determination criteria
packaging DSS Meat comment
Administrator Product User
user profile Packaging
user profile
meat product list of product
packaging packaging
determination criteria logout
list of comment
logout

Figure 2. The context diagram (DFD Level 0) for the meat packaging selection system.

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 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

login
login 2
user profile
login
user profile
1 user profile
registration
user

user profile 3
manage user profile
user
user profile user profile
product parameter
list of product

4 shelf_life_parameter
product parameter
manage
list of product
product
meat_product User
Administrator

aw_parameter
user_parameter

product_category
5 determination criteria
temperature_parameter manage
criteria
determination criteria
determination criteria type of packaging
type of packaging sub of packaging
sub_packaging
sub of packaging
6
type of packaging, sub of packaging manage type_packaging
packaging
type of packaging
comment sub of packaging
7
manage
comment comment
list comment
8
logout logout logout

Figure 3. DFD Level 1 for the meat packaging selection system.

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 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

sub_packaging product_name
description product_category
id_sub_packaging id_meat_product description
id_category description
image image

sub_packaging meat_product have product_category

id_type_packaging
type_packaging
have category temperature
have id_parameter
description log description
id_temperature
image

type_packaging have determination_criteria have temperature_parameter

id_comment
aw
comment description
id_aw
comment log

id_user have aw_parameter

name
fill in sex
address_home shelflife
name_pt id_shelflife description
address_pt
user fill in have shelflife_parameter

tgl_create
telephone status
username level
password website
email

Figure 4 The ERD of meat packaging selection system.

System Implementation completing the meat product and parameter entries,

The meat packaging selection system was
implemented in a web-based environment using PHP
programming language and MySQL 5.0.51b database
management system. The implemented system was
tested on Google Chrome 42.0.2311.90, Firefox
35.0.1, Opera 30.0 and Internet Explorer. The
hardware that was used for running the implemented
system is a laptop ASUS A83S, Intel (R) Core (TM)
i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20 GHz 64-bit, Random
Access Memory 4 GB, Hard Drive 500 GB, Video
Graphics Adapter NVIDIA Geforce 610M 2 GB.
The black-box testing was used to validate the
functionalities and correctness of the system (Naik &
Tripathy, 2008).
The main page of the system prototype is
shown in Figure 5, where a user can enter into the
system the category of meat product, the name of
meat product, required parameters: temperature,
water activity (Aw), and the shelf life of meat the
product to be packaged to the system. Upon
the user can run the selection and the result of the
selection is displayed in Figure 6. The top display in
Figure 6 provides the recommended packaging type
with all respective sub-packaging options below.
For example, the parameter values are
entered including temperature = room, shelf life = 1
week to 1 month, and Aw = wet, the results obtained
are pouch packaging. Type of pouch packaging is
composed of several sub-packaging, including
Standup pouch, Flat pouch, Side gusseted pouch,
Three side sealed pouch, and Block bottom pouch
(Figure 6). Each sub-packaging has a link that is used
to view a description of each sub-packaging. Each
description is always included pictures to illustrate
the form of packaging. This information is displayed
to let users more easily determine the appropriate
packaging to meat products. The more detailed
description of the sub-packaging is shown in Figure
7.

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 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

Figure 5 Parameter input of meat product

Figure 6 Result of packaging selection upon the completion of

meat product and parameter entries shown in Figure 5

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 International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management
29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

Figure 7 Description page of the sub-packaging

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS REFERENCES

The design and implementation of a decision
support system for selecting the packaging options for
various meat products has been described. The
implemented system has been tested for its
functionalities and correctness using a black box testing
method by experts and has been run on several web
browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and
Internet Explorer) successfully. The system that has
been built still emphasizes on packaging type selection
criteria based on food quality parameters without
considering the economic aspects of the packaging
types available in the markets. Therefore the future
extension to the current system is to equip the current
system with price analysis functions to provide the best
packaging type selection with minimum packaging
price. The current system also focuses on agricultural
commodities based animal meat products. Future
enhancement that can be done is to develop the
packaging type selection for various products of fruits
and vegetables.
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29th October 2015. Vol.42 No.1
2012-2015 JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

ISSN 2304-0777 www.jitbm.com

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