Application of crop growth simulation and mathematical modeling to supply chain management in the Thai sugar industry     

Kullapapruk Piewthongngam  Supachai Pathumnakul  Kanchana Setthanan   《Agricultural Systems》2009,102(1-3):58-66

The poorly integrated cane supply planning between mills and cane growers in the Northeast of Thailand generates an excess of cane supplies that exceeds the mills’ capacity during the peak of harvest season. Each grower individually determines his/her cultivation plan by selecting planting dates and cultivars based on one’s own preference without taking into account the individual mill’s capacity and other growers’ plans. This situation causes most sugarcane grown in this area to reach its mature stage at the same period. In this study, we propose a framework of cultivation planning to cope with the problem. The focus of the cultivation plan is a long-term plan to determine the cultivation time, the cultivar selection and the corresponding prospective harvesting time window for each field such that overall sugar production is optimized.The crop growth model and a mathematical model are employed for yield simulation and optimization task. The crop growth model enables decision-makers to visualize cane production of each individual field at different dates with different cultivars and allow decision-makers to apply the mathematical programming to cultivation planning. The suggested framework has the potential to increase sugar production by 23% when compared to the traditional method.  相似文献   

Should feed mills go beyond traditional least cost formulation?     

Supachai PathumnakulMongkon Ittiphalin  Kullapapruk Piewthongngam  Somkiet Rujikietkumjorn 《Computers and Electronics in Agriculture》2011,75(2):243-249

Due to the pressure to become more competitive, feed mills coordinate closely with their suppliers and customers by forward purchasing raw materials and integrating with downstream units such as animal producers. To integrate downstream units and forward purchase raw materials, the mill must explore new paradigms for managing integrated information. The close relationship between customers, suppliers and the feed mill allows the feed manager to access information that was not previously available, such as the price of raw materials and the demand for feed products, which creates a more deterministic environment. In the present study, to exploit information from the integration of production units, an extended planning horizon was evaluated by developing a mathematical model and a heuristic algorithm for multiple period planning. The simulated results indicated that feed mills are likely to benefit from expanding the planning horizon. On average, the costs obtained from multiple-period planning were approximately 2.55% lower than those of single-period planning. Moreover, because recipe costs fluctuate dramatically, mills benefit from multiple-period planning by accounting for variations in recipe costs. However, the savings of multiple period planning are limited by other factors such as inventory holding costs and the warehouse inventory of the feed mill.  相似文献   

Procurement decisions regarding shrimp supplies for Thai shrimp processors     

Supachai Pathumnakul  Sakda Khamjan  Kullapapruk Piewthongngam 《Aquacultural Engineering》2007,37(3):215-221

Shrimps of all sizes are obtained by direct purchasing from independent farms then sorted and sold by size. Shrimp that has not been sold is kept in cold storage, a heavy burden for shrimp processors. In this paper, a mathematical model and a heuristic model based on the dynamic programming are developed to facilitate harvesting decisions for shrimp processors. The objective function of the proposed model is to minimize the cost related to by-size inventory. The effectiveness of the heuristic model is evaluated under a combination of scenarios with various parameters. The results demonstrate that the heuristic model is quite effective and practical in solving the problem.  相似文献