Scheduling Hay Harvesting Operations

 

J L Corner

L R Foulds

 

 Department of Management Systems

 University of Waikato

 New Zealand

[email protected]

[email protected]

 

 

Abstract

 

We report on an actual hay harvesting case study in New Zealand. It appears that the scheduling of hay harvesting operations is a significantly different scenario from those represented by the scheduling models available in the literature. The differences come about because: the duration of each operation is dependent upon the combination of constrained resources allocated to it, individual worker-equipment allocation is restricted, and minimum or maximum time lags can be imposed. We report on generic harvesting operations scheduling solution procedures, designed specifically for the case studies. The results represent significant improvements over the schedules that were traditionally used.