Operations management of a packaging plant in the fruit industry

The production of fresh fruit (apples and pears) and concentrated juice is one of the major regional economic activities of Argentina, which has traditionally been one of the world's main fresh fruit and concentrated juice producers. Due to market reasons, there is a strong need to count with reliable decision tools to manage the whole business. In order to tackle this problem, advantages can be taken from developments on formulations of planning and scheduling models. In this work, a realistic planning model of a packaging plant, the most important instance within the fresh fruit supply-chain industry from a tactical point of view, is developed. The model can be applied to estimate the fruit processing capacity of the facility in order to establish future sales policies. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.