IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v314y2022i2d10.1007_s10479-020-03686-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improving harvesting operations in an oil palm plantation

Author

Listed:
  • Mariana Escallón-Barrios

    (Universidad de Los Andes)

  • Daniel Castillo-Gomez

    (Universidad de Los Andes)

  • Jorge Leal

    (Universidad de Los Andes)

  • Carlos Montenegro

    (Universidad de Los Andes)

  • Andrés L. Medaglia

    (Universidad de Los Andes)

Abstract

Oil palm agricultural systems involve large extensions of land that demand careful planning of the harvesting operations. The plantation manager is in charge of synchronizing resources (i.e., crews and a complex cableway network) to harvest at the right time to maximize palm oil yield in latter stages of the value chain. In particular, in this type of crop it is ideal to visit each palm every eight to twelve days to avoid loose fruit picking, over-ripeness, or rotten fruit harvesting. To optimize harvest operations, we propose an end-to-end analytics solution involving data treatment, descriptive (simulation), and prescriptive models (optimization) in this agricultural system. At the core of our approach lies a set of interconnected models that use optimization, heuristic techniques, and simulation. These models cover strategic (harvest cycle), tactical (resource allocation), and operational (transport allocation) decisions. We present a case study of a 2000-ha plantation located in the Colombian Orinoquia. The results show a strong potential for improving yield by reducing the harvest cycle length from 19.6 to 8.3 days.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariana Escallón-Barrios & Daniel Castillo-Gomez & Jorge Leal & Carlos Montenegro & Andrés L. Medaglia, 2022. "Improving harvesting operations in an oil palm plantation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 314(2), pages 411-449, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:314:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10479-020-03686-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-020-03686-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-020-03686-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10479-020-03686-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A J Higgins & C J Miller & A A Archer & T Ton & C S Fletcher & R R J McAllister, 2010. "Challenges of operations research practice in agricultural value chains," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(6), pages 964-973, June.
    2. Alysson Costa & Lana Santos & Douglas Alem & Ricardo Santos, 2014. "Sustainable vegetable crop supply problem with perishable stocks," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 219(1), pages 265-283, August.
    3. Regis Mauri, Geraldo, 2019. "Improved mathematical model and bounds for the crop rotation scheduling problem with adjacency constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(1), pages 120-135.
    4. van der Vorst, Jack G. A. J. & Beulens, Adrie J. M. & van Beek, Paul, 2000. "Modelling and simulating multi-echelon food systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 354-366, April.
    5. Andrés Weintraub & Carlos Romero, 2006. "Operations Research Models and the Management of Agricultural and Forestry Resources: A Review and Comparison," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 36(5), pages 446-457, October.
    6. Jacques Desrosiers & Marco E. Lübbecke, 2005. "A Primer in Column Generation," Springer Books, in: Guy Desaulniers & Jacques Desrosiers & Marius M. Solomon (ed.), Column Generation, chapter 0, pages 1-32, Springer.
    7. Ademosun, O. C. & Noble, David H., 1982. "A location-allocation model for the Nigerian oil palm industry assuming an infinite location space," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 15-27, July.
    8. Marco E. Lübbecke & Jacques Desrosiers, 2005. "Selected Topics in Column Generation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(6), pages 1007-1023, December.
    9. dos Santos, Lana Mara R. & Costa, Alysson M. & Arenales, Marcos N. & Santos, Ricardo Henrique S., 2010. "Sustainable vegetable crop supply problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 204(3), pages 639-647, August.
    10. Ademosun, O. C., 1982. "Mechanised production system of oil palm produce in Nigeria: A preliminary study on the establishment of location-allocation models," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 193-207, April.
    11. Ahumada, Omar & Villalobos, J. Rene, 2009. "Application of planning models in the agri-food supply chain: A review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(1), pages 1-20, July.
    12. Borodin, Valeria & Bourtembourg, Jean & Hnaien, Faicel & Labadie, Nacima, 2016. "Handling uncertainty in agricultural supply chain management: A state of the art," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 254(2), pages 348-359.
    13. Alfandari, Laurent & Plateau, Agnès & Schepler, Xavier, 2015. "A branch-and-price-and-cut approach for sustainable crop rotation planning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 241(3), pages 872-879.
    14. Euler, Michael & Hoffmann, Munir P. & Fathoni, Zakky & Schwarze, Stefan, 2016. "Exploring yield gaps in smallholder oil palm production systems in eastern Sumatra, Indonesia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 111-119.
    15. Dennis Huisman & Raf Jans & Marc Peeters & Albert P.M. Wagelmans, 2005. "Combining Column Generation and Lagrangian Relaxation," Springer Books, in: Guy Desaulniers & Jacques Desrosiers & Marius M. Solomon (ed.), Column Generation, chapter 0, pages 247-270, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sushil Gupta & Hossein Rikhtehgar Berenji & Manish Shukla & Nagesh N. Murthy, 2023. "Opportunities in farming research from an operations management perspective," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(6), pages 1577-1596, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Víctor M. Albornoz & Gabriel E. Zamora, 2021. "Decomposition-based heuristic for the zoning and crop planning problem with adjacency constraints," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 29(1), pages 248-265, April.
    2. Behzadi, Golnar & O’Sullivan, Michael Justin & Olsen, Tava Lennon & Zhang, Abraham, 2018. "Agribusiness supply chain risk management: A review of quantitative decision models," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 21-42.
    3. Utomo, Dhanan Sarwo & Onggo, Bhakti Stephan & Eldridge, Stephen, 2018. "Applications of agent-based modelling and simulation in the agri-food supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(3), pages 794-805.
    4. Santos, Lana M.R. & Munari, Pedro & Costa, Alysson M. & Santos, Ricardo H.S., 2015. "A branch-price-and-cut method for the vegetable crop rotation scheduling problem with minimal plot sizes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(2), pages 581-590.
    5. Borodin, Valeria & Bourtembourg, Jean & Hnaien, Faicel & Labadie, Nacima, 2016. "Handling uncertainty in agricultural supply chain management: A state of the art," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 254(2), pages 348-359.
    6. Salvatore Ammirato & Alberto Michele Felicetti & Massimiliano Ferrara & Cinzia Raso & Antonio Violi, 2021. "Collaborative Organization Models for Sustainable Development in the Agri-Food Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-22, February.
    7. Fuchigami, Helio Yochihiro & Tuni, Andrea & Barbosa, Luísa Queiroz & Severino, Maico Roris & Rentizelas, Athanasios, 2021. "Supporting Brazilian smallholder farmers decision making in supplying institutional markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(1), pages 321-335.
    8. Alysson Costa & Lana Santos & Douglas Alem & Ricardo Santos, 2014. "Sustainable vegetable crop supply problem with perishable stocks," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 219(1), pages 265-283, August.
    9. Thomas, Anu & Venkateswaran, Jayendran & Singh, Gaurav & Krishnamoorthy, Mohan, 2014. "A resource constrained scheduling problem with multiple independent producers and a single linking constraint: A coal supply chain example," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 236(3), pages 946-956.
    10. Alfandari, Laurent & Plateau, Agnès & Schepler, Xavier, 2015. "A branch-and-price-and-cut approach for sustainable crop rotation planning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 241(3), pages 872-879.
    11. Bo Yan & Xiaoxu Chen & Qin Yuan & Xiaotai Zhou, 2020. "Sustainability in fresh agricultural product supply chain based on radio frequency identification under an emergency," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 28(4), pages 1343-1361, December.
    12. Magdalena Leithner & Christian Fikar, 2022. "A simulation model to investigate impacts of facilitating quality data within organic fresh food supply chains," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 314(2), pages 529-550, July.
    13. Rohmer, S.U.K. & Gerdessen, J.C. & Claassen, G.D.H., 2019. "Sustainable supply chain design in the food system with dietary considerations: A multi-objective analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(3), pages 1149-1164.
    14. Ana Esteso & M. M. E. Alemany & Angel Ortiz & Shaofeng Liu, 2022. "Optimization model to support sustainable crop planning for reducing unfairness among farmers," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 30(3), pages 1101-1127, September.
    15. Pagare, Dewang & Biswas, Indranil & Agrahari, Amit & Ghosh, Sriparna, 2023. "A small farmer’s market choice in the presence of multiple markets: The Indian case," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(2), pages 739-753.
    16. Jitka JANOVÁ, 2014. "Crop plan optimization under risk on a farm level in the Czech Republic," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 60(3), pages 123-132.
    17. Soto-Silva, Wladimir E. & Nadal-Roig, Esteve & González-Araya, Marcela C. & Pla-Aragones, Lluis M., 2016. "Operational research models applied to the fresh fruit supply chain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 251(2), pages 345-355.
    18. Behzadi, Golnar & O'Sullivan, Michael Justin & Olsen, Tava Lennon & Scrimgeour, Frank & Zhang, Abraham, 2017. "Robust and resilient strategies for managing supply disruptions in an agribusiness supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 207-220.
    19. Benati, Stefano & Ponce, Diego & Puerto, Justo & Rodríguez-Chía, Antonio M., 2022. "A branch-and-price procedure for clustering data that are graph connected," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(3), pages 817-830.
    20. Silvia Araújo dos Reis & José Eugenio Leal & Antônio Márcio Tavares Thomé, 2023. "A Two-Stage Stochastic Linear Programming Model for Tactical Planning in the Soybean Supply Chain," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-26, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:314:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10479-020-03686-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.