Simulation Model to Determine Optimum Field Bins Allocation for Wheat Harvestig and Transportation to the Grain Elevator

With the aim to optimise wheat harvesting and transportation, the authors built a discrete simulation model customised to study the harvester harvesting pattern, the field bin allocation and the road transport operation. The model considers all these operations as a part of a system and takes into account field size and shape, distance from the elevator, yield and resources available. This paper will describe the application of the model for a wheat harvesting system in South Australia. The simulation helped to point out situations where a management or logistic solution could provide improvements without real, huge expenses. Just a different resource allocation could make the difference. The results pointed out that bin location and availability greatly influence the performance of the harvest and transport operation, since this resource is the buffer for the harvester and for the truck. In this case the best bin location and harvest pattern could lead to a reduction of 43 h (11%) per season in harvester work while harvesting 3000 ha. Besides the saving for the farmer, this yields roughly 2600 kg reduction in fossil fuel consumption, which yields a reduction in CO2 emissions of roughly 7.1 t.year{-1}.