Simulation model for paddy transportation strategy in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Cost effective paddy harvest transportation strategy is simulated in tills operational study. Paddy production of administrative districts of Sri Lanka is assumed to be distributed among the districts proportional to their respective populations. Paddy production varies highly among the administrative districts of Sri Lanka and district wise consumption also varies based on population. Aim of this study is to find out the cost benefit transportation over Sri Lanka treating it as stochastic transportation problem which describe as minimize, total transportation cost subject to with realized minimum probabiliues of supply and demand constraint. Transportation problem of each cultivation seasons of each year is solved by finding out the districts and amounts that need the commodity from osiers (called consumers) and those that can supply called suppliers. It is assumed that overall paddy production of a cultivation year is sufficient enough for total populauon. A transportation pattern is figure out from supplier districts to consumer districts by solving these deterministic transportation problems. Almost all real life problems encounter uncertainty. Therefore this analysis is extended to introduce simulation model to find out optimum transportation strategy considering unccrtainucs. Simulated transportation strategy is presented by solving the chance constrained stochastic programming problem. The classical transportation problems for the years from 1989 to 2000 are solved here. Moreover simulated and actual results arc presented for the years 2000 . Finally tins simulation model is implemented as decision support system for the cost effective transportation strategy of such products.