Australian sugar mills optimize harvester rosters to improve production

Increasing cost/price ratios in sugarcane production and the pressure to remain internationally competitive have forced Australian sugar mills to try to use their infrastructure more efficiently. Generating rosters for sugarcane harvesters manually is difficult because the mills have a large number of harvesters and tight capacities in the transportation facilities. The Co-operative Research Centre for Sustainable Sugar Production conducted a participatory research process with five mills in the Australian sugar industry to develop models to optimize harvester rosters. Embedded in the research process and underpinned by action learning was the development of a novel integer-programming model, its validation, and its implementation. The participatory research overcame barriers to implementation of the rosters produced by the model and allowed the five participating mills to realize benefits in terms of more efficient transport operations.