Title: A Decision Support System for sustainable maize harvesting operations scheduling

Authors: L.R. Foulds, Xiao Dan Zhao

Addresses: Department of Management Systems, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton 2020, New Zealand. ' Department of Management Systems, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton 2020, New Zealand

Abstract: We describe a Decision Support System (DSS) developed for the scheduling of the operations of contractors who travel from farm to farm to harvest maize. MaizeManager is designed to aid the schedulers of harvesting equipment and personnel in creating or improving schedules, and enables them to use their experience and preferences. A case study is reported, discussing the environment that motivated its development, namely for the harvesting scheduling at Reymers Ltd, New Zealand. The system provides a useful addition to the contracting scheduler|s toolkit and an interesting application of the DSS approach to a critical area of agriculture.

Keywords: decision support systems; DSS; maize harvesting; scheduling; crop harvesting; maizemanager; prototyping; resource tracking; information management; New Zealand.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2007.012541

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2007 Vol.2 No.4, pp.372 - 391

Published online: 22 Feb 2007 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article