Optimization based planning tools for routing of forwarders at harvest areas

Abstract

The forwarding of logs at harvest areas once the harvesting is done is planned manually by experienced operators. To improve their efficiency and simplify the planning we have developed and tested a decision support system at a major Swedish forest company. The system is based on a combination of a geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and optimization routines to solve the underlying vehicle routing problem. The routes for the forwarders are found by using a repeated matching algorithm. The solution time is short, and it is possible to find routes dynamically in a real-time environment. The geographic information required is found by using a GPS together with data obtained from the bucking software in the harvesters. To show the routes and location of the forwarder, we make use of a GIS that is connected to the GPS. We report on a study with savings in the distance travelled of 8% and numerical tests on the solution methodology. We also compare the proposed solution method with some well-known routing methods.