Golden Lechon House is a local business in Davao that opened in 1983.

Starting
off as a small “karenderya” style restaurant that served different viands and displayed
whole roasted pigs at its front, the business soon grew to be a famous staple lechon
house in Davao. It’s original name was ‘Chavez Lechon House’ but was then renamed,
after the business was purchased by Teresita Manalo Almirante. The business is now
family-run by Teresita and members of the Manalo family. 

The main product or dish of Golden Lechon House is their roasted whole pig that
could be bought as a whole, in kilos, or in single servings. As of today, Golden Lechon
House could sell-out 2-3 whole roasted pigs per day, even on slow days excluding
special orders. For the business to cope up with the demand of lechon, they farm their
own pigs which came from Samal and are then transferred to their slaughter and
cooking house. There, pigs are prepared by lechoneros on a manual roaster.

The case study to be conducted will be focused on the lechoneros or the

operators of Golden Lechon House during the process of preparation and roasting the
pig. The preparation before roasting and the actual roasting of the whole pig is a
thorough process that consists of various elements to consider thus making the set up a
manual labor. With this focus, the researchers were able to come up with an idea which
will be focusing on the areas that need ergonomic improvement.

The whole roasting process have risk factors that lead to musculoskeletal injuries
which are basically soft tissue injuries caused by sudden impact, force, vibration, and
unbalanced positions. Lechoneros are indeed prone to these kinds of injury since both
the preparation and roasting process require maximum muscle strength and movement.
Slaughtering the pig is part of the preparation process and this involves various steps
like draining the blood, dehairing, and cleaning the whole raw pig through boiling hot
water. As for the roasting process of the slaughtered pig, lechoneros need to carry the
whole pig so that they could insert the steel rod right through it. After inserting the steel
rod, the lechoneros need to rotate the rod in the spit in a controlled manner which lasts
for at least 3-4 hours. Clearly these processes are heavy on the workers resulting for us
to focus on this area. If we were able to suggest alternatives or solutions, then it could
be of great benefit not just for the workers’ well-being but also of the whole business
both ergonomically and economically.

Our case study will be mainly focusing on developing modern solutions

addressing these manual labors specifically the preparation and roasting processes,
these lechoneros do every day.