Harvesting and evacuation route optimisation model for fresh fruit bunch in the oil palm plantation site
2021
Lim, Chun Hsion | Cheah, Zi Hooi | Lee, Xi Him | How, Bing Shen | Ng, Wendy Pei Qin | Ngan, Sue Lin | Lim, Steven | Lam, Hon Loong
As one of the major vegetable oils, the sustainability development in the palm oil industry is a critical concern among the global community. Majority of the sustainability concerns relate to the plantation practises which were claimed to be inefficient and create pollution. This paper explores the issues associated with the oil palm plantation site, specifically in the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting and evacuation process that known to be a labour and energy intensive process. A novel mathematical model was proposed to determine the shortest distance required to collect harvestable FFBs within the site. The model was demonstrated on various scenarios within the oil palm plantation site, including the differences in floorplan shape, distribution of harvestable trees, and loading capacity of transporter. The results have shown that the proposed model is capable to propose the shortest route(s) for different plantation site to reduce the travelled distance. Vertical rectangular plantation layout was found to have the highest reduction in travelled distance at 21% as compared to other floorplans; and the impact of the reduction in travelled distance is most noticeable at low harvestable tree distribution (60%) at 26.4%. Lastly, the proposed model was demonstrated to be able to propose a multiple trips solution when a low loading capacity transporter (wheelbarrow), which is a critical solution for small and medium enterprise farmers.
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