PRODUCTION SCHEDULING AND ALLOCATION: A NORMATIVE DECISION MODEL FOR SUGAR MILLING

An inter-temporal equilibrium model is developed for the purpose of optimizing the scheduling of production in Australian sugar mills. An application of this quadratic programming model is then discussed, and the procedures used to estimate coefficients are outlined. Two tentative conclusions are that mills tend to commence crushing before the optimal starting date and that in many cases they would have been unable to cover their marginal processing costs when producing No.2 Pool sugar in recent seasons.