An optimization model for annual harvest planning

The problem we consider is annual harvesting planning from the perspective of Swedish forest companies. The main decisions deal with which areas to harvest during an annual period so that the wood-processing facilities receive the required amount of assortments. Each area has a specific size and composition of assortments, and the choice of harvesting areas affects the production level of different assortments. We need to decide which harvest team to use for each area, considering that each team has different skills, home base, and production capacities. Also, the weather and road conditions vary during the year. Some roads cannot be used during certain time periods and others should be avoided. The road maintenance cost varies during the year. Also, some areas cannot be harvested during certain periods. Overall decisions about transportation and storage are also included. In this paper, we develop a mixed integer programming model for the problem. There are binary variables associated with harvesting, allocation of teams, and road-opening decisions. The other decisions are represented by continuous variables. We solve this problem directly with CPLEX 8.1 within a practical solution time limit. Computational results from a major Swedish forest company are presented.