In order to maintain its international competitiveness the Australian sugar industry has to look at ways of reducing its freight transport costs. The objective of this study is to develop and validate a dynamic model for sugar cane transport by road. The cane harvesting-transport-processing system is very complex, comprising an integrated chain of activities that stretch from the grower through to transport and mill processing. This combination of a complex logistics network generates an extremely large number of alternative scenarios to be evaluated. Usually, the objectives of the problem can be to minimise the number of trucks required, minimise the number of bins required, while maintaining uninterrupted crushing at the forecast capacity during the whole harvesting season. For long term planning the simulation model could be potentially used in a number of what-if scenarios to evaluate different combinations of harvesting and transport - that is, to determine the effects of increasing or decreasing resources, and giving indicators as to what is the optimal fleet size for various conditions. The simulation model will provide the cane traffic inspectors with a method for optimising the resources of the harvesting-transport-processing system over large horizons (entire harvesting season) while at the same time planning the day to day operation. This will lead to productivity gains in the mill cane supply operations by minimising operating expenses and the maximum utilization of capital. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E205861.
Abstract