Achievements in cost reduction and efficient operation of the Thai sugarcane supply chain optimization modeling
2009
Kaewtrakulpong, K. | Takigawa, T.
More effective cost reduction and efficiency improvement in sugarcane harvesting and transportation are needed to maintain current status of the Thai sugar industry in a competitive international market. A mechanized resource allocation plan provides one such opportunity. This study found that the allocation of mechanical harvesters and trucks to reduce the cost in sugarcane harvest influenced the profit distribution among the three groups involved: sugarcane farmers, the owners of the trucks and mechanical harvesters and sugar factories. These groups usually do not have common interests. A mechanized resource allocation plan should be considered together with acceptance of the plant gained from the engaged groups. Therefore, multi-objective optimization (MOO) was applied in this study to find a compromise solution. The parameters used in the MOO model were evaluated by using a simple sugarcane harvesting and transportation simulation derived from the field study in Udon Thani Province, northeastern Thailand. An area of 10 km by 10 km, covering 248 sugarcane fields, was used in our computational experiment. The compromise solution obtained from MOO was more acceptable than the solutions obtained from single-objective optimization. The main factors influencing cost were the distance to a sugar factory, field size and their interaction. In addition, cost reduction and efficient-operation in mechanical harvesting and transportation were achieved. The percentage of reduction in operating cost was 4 to 9% while the percentage of decrease in the number of working days per unit area was 4 to 43%.
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