Applying Mathematical Programming to Planning Bin Location in Apple Orchards

摘要

In Chile, it has been observed that there is downtime during the apple harvest season. This is largely due to the long distances that the workers must cover and the lack of bins in the orchards. Currently, the administrators do not use methods that enable them to estimate the number of bins required or where they should be located. Taking these observations into consideration, this research paper proposes a plan for bin placement in apple orchards by applying a location model with the objective of diminishing distances covered by the harvest personnel. With data from an orchard in the Maule Region of Chile, the number of bins to be used is calculated taking into consideration the particular surface characteristics of the plantation and the apple variety maturity indicators. For the spatial distribution of the bins, the capacitated p-median was used, because better results were obtained with it in terms of reducing travel distance during the harvest and the ease of implementing the solutions.