Analyzing an emergency maintenance system in the agriculture stage of a Brazilian sugarcane mill using an approximate hypercube method.
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Date
2018
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Abstract
In this paper, we present and apply an approximate hypercube queuing method to analyze an emergency
maintenance system within the agricultural stage of Brazil’s sugarcane industry. We incorporate differentiated
service rates in the approximate hypercube method to deal with significant travel times as well as partial backup
and priority in queue to mimic the dispatch policies of the system. We then applied this method using data from
a case study conducted in an existing sugar and alcohol mill. We also investigated an alternative scenario for this
system, as proposed by the company‘s managers, whereby the number of servers increases. The results showed
that the method is an efficient way to investigate the original configuration as well as an alternative scenario for
the case study. Furthermore, the method might be useful in larger applications and/or similar agro-industries.
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Keywords
Approximate hypercube queuing method, Extensions of the hypercube model, Sugarcane industry
Citation
RODRIGUES, L. F. et al. Analyzing an emergency maintenance system in the agriculture stage of a Brazilian sugarcane mill using an approximate hypercube method. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, v. 151, p. 441-452, 2018. Disponível em: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168169917303629>. Acesso em: 15 fev. 2019.