Operations Management

Energy Footprint of Mechanized Agricultural Operations

“…where F i (−) is the soil texture adjustment parameter; A, B, and C are machine specific parameters; and O depth (cm) is the operation depth. Considering the above, the draft power (kW) is calculated as follows [23]:…”

“…Additionally, the effect of machinery selection or machinery dimensioning (considering, for example, the time availability, that is, the workability of the system at hand) is not considered during the assessment, while there are only a few studies examining the embodied energy of agricultural machinery [19][20][21] and the energy cost of machinery when performing a specific task [22]. It is also worth noting that, with respect to the selection of the required machinery, mostly financial methods are employed that consider the economic cost of operations [23,24]. However, with the advancement of technology it is important to examine the energy contribution of the machinery, especially when the introduction of new equipment is assessed [25][26][27].…”

“…For that reason, a computational model was designed and implemented in order to examine the machinery energy cost of performing an agricultural operation. The model selects the required machinery to perform the operation under given workability constraints [23], choosing from a collection of commercially available implements and tractors, and considering a series of operational parameters including the soil type, the operation depth, and the field area to be processed.…”

A Case-Based Economic Assessment of Robotics Employment in Precision Arable Farming

“…with i representing the interest, and a the inflation rate. As depreciation cost is defined the reduction of the initial value of the machinery resulting from its exploitation [16]. The most common and simple method for estimating the depuration cost is the "fixed depreciation method" which equivalently allocates the value loss from the machinery use within the years of the investment:…”

“…For the estimation of the repair and maintenance cost, it is assumed that the conventional machinery works approximately 1066 h year −1 [19] given a 15-year lifespan and 16,000 h total working hours. The robotic system is assumed to be working for approximately 2000 h year −1 [16]. Lastly, regarding the conventional machinery, the specific fuel consumption was estimated at 0.478 l KWh −1 [19] and the average diesel cost for agricultural use was set to 1.038 € L −1 [23].…”