A job-shop scheduling approach for optimising sugarcane rail operations

  • Mahmoud Masoud
  • , Erhan Kozan*
  • , Geoff Kent
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

The sugarcane transport system is very complex and uses a daily schedule, consisting of a set of locomotives runs, to satisfy the requirements of the mill and harvesters. The total cost of sugarcane transport operations is very high; over 35% of the total cost of sugarcane production in Australia is incurred in cane transport. Producing efficient schedules for sugarcane transport can reduce the cost and limit the negative effects that this system can have on the raw sugar production system. In this paper, the sugarcane rail operations are formulated as a blocking job shop scheduling problem. A mixed integer programming approach is used to formulate the shop job scheduling problem. Mixed integer programming and constraint programming search techniques are integrated for solving the problem. A case study is solved to test the approach.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)181-206
Number of pages26
JournalFlexible Services and Manufacturing Journal
Volume23
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Constraint programming
  • Integer programming
  • Job shop
  • Sugarcane rail

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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