Question

Difficulty: MediumDivision of Labour and Specialization

A commercial cocoa processing factory in Osun State operates a specialized production line to process raw cocoa beans into refined cocoa powder and butter. Arrange the operational stages below in their correct chronological sequence from raw material entry to final product milling.

  1. 1Cleaning and inspecting raw harvested cocoa beans to eliminate foreign particles, stones, and defective beans.
  2. 2Roasting and winnowing the cleaned beans to loosen outer shells and separate the nibs.
  3. 3Grinding the isolated cocoa nibs under heat to produce a smooth, liquid cocoa liquor.
  4. 4Applying hydraulic pressure to cocoa liquor to separate cocoa butter from solid cocoa cakes.
  5. 5Milling and pulverizing the solid cocoa press-cakes into fine commercial cocoa powder.

Answer

The correct operational sequence begins with cleaning raw beans, followed by roasting and winnowing, grinding nibs into cocoa liquor, pressing to separate butter from cake, and finally milling the press-cake into cocoa powder.
In a specialized cocoa processing division of labour model, each workstation depends strictly on the output of the preceding stage. Cleaning raw beans comes first. Roasting and winnowing isolates clean nibs, which are then ground into cocoa liquor. Pressing the liquor extracts butter and yields press-cake, which is finally milled into fine cocoa powder.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the initial raw material input preparation task.
Cleaning raw harvested cocoa beans must be performed first.
Processing uncleaned raw materials introduces impurities and damages downstream specialized machinery.
2
Determine the shell removal and nib extraction stage.
Roasting and winnowing cleaned beans follows cleaning.
Heat loosens outer husks so air winnowing can cleanly separate unusable shells from inner nibs.
3
Identify the primary liquefaction stage.
Grinding nibs into cocoa liquor follows winnowing.
Physical grinding under thermal conditions converts solid de-husked nibs into cocoa liquor paste.
4
Locate the fat extraction phase.
Pressing cocoa liquor to separate cocoa butter from press-cake follows grinding.
Hydraulic pressing requires liquid cocoa liquor to extract fat and yield compressed solid cakes.
5
Identify the final product finishing phase.
Milling cocoa cakes into fine powder is the final step.
Solid cocoa cakes produced from hydraulic extraction are pulverized into commercial cocoa powder.

Key Concept

Division of Labour in Sequential Manufacturing Processes
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