Simulation Analysis of Sweet Pepper Harvesting Operations

Abstract

Greenhouse crop production requires extensive manual labor. The objective of this research is to analyze different work methods for harvesting in sweet pepper greenhouses. Operations research of harvesting work methods for a Dutch and Israeli sweet pepper greenhouse was performed. An existing discrete event simulation model on the crop handling processes inside a greenhouse, GWorkS, was used to simulate harvesting of sweet peppers in both countries. Results of simulation of one day showed that the model estimates harvesting time with an accuracy of 92% for NL data and 96% for IL data. The data analysis showed differences between the greenhouses in the existing harvesting procedures, logistic operations and data collection. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014.