Introduction of a New Index of Field Operations Efficiency
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Research & Advanced Engineering, Global Harvesting, AGCO A/S, Dronningborg Alle 2, 8930 Randers, Denmark
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Department of Engineering, Aarhus University, Blichers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50, 8830 Tjele, Denmark
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Institute for Bio-economy and Agri-Technology (IBO), Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), 6th km Charilaou-Thermi Rd., 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(1), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10010329
Received: 5 December 2019
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Revised: 24 December 2019
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Accepted: 26 December 2019
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Published: 1 January 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Agri-Technologies)
The evaluation and prediction of the agricultural machinery field efficiency is essential for agricultural operations management. Field efficiency is affected by unpredictable (e.g., machine breakdowns) and stochastic (e.g., yield) factors, and thus, it is generally provided by average norms. However, the average values and ranges of the field efficiency are of limited value when a decision has to be made on the selection of the appropriate machinery system for a specific operational set up. To this end, in this paper, a new index for field operability, the field traversing efficiency (FTE), a distance-based measure, is introduced and a dedicated tool for estimation of this measure is presented. In order to show the degree of the dependence of the FTE index on the operational features, a number of 864 scenarios derived from the consideration of six sample field shapes, three conventional fieldwork patterns, four driving directions, and twelve combinations of machine unit kinematics and implement width were evaluated by the developed tool. The test results showed that variation of FTE was up to 23% in the tested scenarios when using different operational setups.
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Keywords:
operation management; field coverage; route planning; productivity
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MDPI and ACS Style
Zhou, K.; Bochtis, D.; Jensen, A.L.; Kateris, D.; Sørensen, C.G. Introduction of a New Index of Field Operations Efficiency. Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 329. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10010329
AMA Style
Zhou K, Bochtis D, Jensen AL, Kateris D, Sørensen CG. Introduction of a New Index of Field Operations Efficiency. Applied Sciences. 2020; 10(1):329. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10010329
Chicago/Turabian StyleZhou, Kun, Dionysis Bochtis, Allan L. Jensen, Dimitrios Kateris, and Claus G. Sørensen. 2020. "Introduction of a New Index of Field Operations Efficiency" Applied Sciences 10, no. 1: 329. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10010329
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