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Further detail on modelling approaches in the sugar industry is given below. Three case studies<br />
provide examples <strong>of</strong> the application <strong>of</strong> these models in various sugarcane mill supply regions. Further<br />
details on the case studies are provided by SRDC (2006b).<br />
Sugarcane production modelling<br />
Sugarcane production modeling has focused on many applications, including simulation <strong>of</strong> long term<br />
and seasonal sugarcane yields, comparing yield with and without a trash blanket, analysis <strong>of</strong> impact <strong>of</strong><br />
soil type, irrigation and nutrient management on yield and the environment, assessment <strong>of</strong> field and<br />
row layout. The APSIM-Sugarcane model has been the basis <strong>of</strong> this work. (Keating et al (1999) and<br />
Thorburn et al (2004).<br />
Harvest and infield haulage<br />
Estimates <strong>of</strong> costs <strong>of</strong> harvest and haulage to loading zones or sidings were based on the<br />
Harvest-Haul model (Sandell and Prestwidge 2004). The model interacts with the Transport model by<br />
suppling harvester delivery rates and accepting time harvesters spent waiting for bin deliveries to the<br />
pad or siding. Much work has focussed on optimising the number and location <strong>of</strong> cane delivery pads<br />
in mill supply regions (Prestwidge et al 2006).<br />
The model requires inputs for (1) the block being harvested (crop yield, block area, row length,<br />
distance to siding, allocation to siding, allocation to harvester group), and (2) the harvesting<br />
equipment (capital equipment type, size, specifications and value) in the region. GIS was used to<br />
estimate these parameters. Chapter 7 provides an assessment <strong>of</strong> Mallee harvest and infield haulage<br />
costs based on this model.<br />
Transport systems<br />
A road transport model has been developed by Higgins (2006) and has been used widely to for<br />
capacity planning, road and rail transport schedule optimisation and siding and pad location and<br />
optimisation (Pinkney and Everitt, 1997).<br />
Milling/ Factory<br />
The sugar mill model has been developed to estimate raw sugar, molasses and electricity end-products<br />
from cane supply components. A particular focus has been prediction <strong>of</strong> sugar recovery based on<br />
differing proportions <strong>of</strong> cane and trash supplied to the factory. The model is configured to include the<br />
main infrastructure <strong>of</strong> the factory, including, where appropriate, trash separation, bagasse storage,<br />
bagasse handling and electricity generation (Hobson and Wright, 2002).<br />
Asset Management and Electronic Consignment<br />
Tracking cane from the field to the mill in real time provides information on the volume <strong>of</strong> cane<br />
harvested, where it came from, how fast it is being cut and its route and timing <strong>of</strong> delivery. Systems<br />
have been successfully developed which provide GPS tracking on harvester, haulout and transport<br />
units, RFID tags on bins for delivery, ZigBee modems for local communication and use <strong>of</strong> NextG<br />
networks for communication <strong>of</strong> information to a central server at the mill where data is integrated into<br />
a GIS system to display real time harvest progress (Marrero et al 2010). Benefits include paperless<br />
tracking <strong>of</strong> assets and harvest/transport scheduling.<br />
Spatial data to improve harvest management, data recording and reporting<br />
Crossley and Markley (2011) have developed a system AgDat which integrates data and information<br />
to improve harvest management, data recording, reporting and data exchange. Field data (eg varieties,<br />
inputs, surveys) can be collected and loaded in the field and combined with data collected from<br />
loggers (eg GPS referenced harvest progress and performance) which is integrated and interpolated on<br />
a database and exchange network and made available to users through a desktop or web based<br />
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