A Truck Scheduling System Improves Efficiency in the Forest Industries

Abstract

Timber transport plays an important part in the overall operational costs of forest industries. Depending on their size, typical large forest firms move between 500,000 and 3,000,000 cubic meters a year, with transportation budgets ranging from US $5 to 20 million. We developed an operative and computerized system, ASICAM, based on a simulation process with heuristic rules, to support daily truck scheduling decisions. It can be used on any personal computer and runs for about three minutes on a PC 486 for larger problems. ASICAM has been implemented in eight of the largest forest firms in Chile, reducing costs and improving overall operation and work efficiency.