A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry
Indoor vertical farming (VF) systems are a form of controlled environment agriculture, making use of technology to improve food availability and security while reducing environmental impacts. Commercially, it is a young industry with potential to disrupt the food supply chain status quo but is faced...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2023-10-01
|
| Series: | Smart Agricultural Technology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772375523000746 |
| _version_ | 1797826346617929728 |
|---|---|
| author | Ben Schulman John T. Blake Richard Donald |
| author_facet | Ben Schulman John T. Blake Richard Donald |
| author_sort | Ben Schulman |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Indoor vertical farming (VF) systems are a form of controlled environment agriculture, making use of technology to improve food availability and security while reducing environmental impacts. Commercially, it is a young industry with potential to disrupt the food supply chain status quo but is faced with uncertainty and risk with respect to product demand and production technology efficacy. As a result, VF firms must make decisions to develop production capacity that meets market demand while ensuring long-term profitability. This research presents a method for VF firms to facilitate the allocation of capital resources to new production capacity considering demand and production uncertainty. The method makes use of two mixed integer linear programming models, executed sequentially, to identify a production technology plan and then to identify production capacity plans under a range of different demand scenarios. Profit is used to evaluate performance and the method includes a multi-criteria comparison of how production plans perform using a range of preselected criteria. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T12:31:15Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5eb77ebea8194e20ab54ef3af895ff0f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2772-3755 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T12:31:15Z |
| publishDate | 2023-10-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Smart Agricultural Technology |
| spelling | doaj.art-5eb77ebea8194e20ab54ef3af895ff0f2023-05-16T04:06:07ZengElsevierSmart Agricultural Technology2772-37552023-10-015100244A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industryBen Schulman0John T. Blake1Richard Donald2Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia NS B3H 4R2, CanadaFaculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada; Corresponding author.Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, Truro, Nova Scotia, CanadaIndoor vertical farming (VF) systems are a form of controlled environment agriculture, making use of technology to improve food availability and security while reducing environmental impacts. Commercially, it is a young industry with potential to disrupt the food supply chain status quo but is faced with uncertainty and risk with respect to product demand and production technology efficacy. As a result, VF firms must make decisions to develop production capacity that meets market demand while ensuring long-term profitability. This research presents a method for VF firms to facilitate the allocation of capital resources to new production capacity considering demand and production uncertainty. The method makes use of two mixed integer linear programming models, executed sequentially, to identify a production technology plan and then to identify production capacity plans under a range of different demand scenarios. Profit is used to evaluate performance and the method includes a multi-criteria comparison of how production plans perform using a range of preselected criteria.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772375523000746Vertical farmingFacility designProduction planningMathematical programming |
| spellingShingle | Ben Schulman John T. Blake Richard Donald A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry Smart Agricultural Technology Vertical farming Facility design Production planning Mathematical programming |
| title | A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| title_full | A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| title_fullStr | A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| title_full_unstemmed | A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| title_short | A production capacity investment decision-making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| title_sort | production capacity investment decision making tool for the indoor vertical farming industry |
| topic | Vertical farming Facility design Production planning Mathematical programming |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772375523000746 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT benschulman aproductioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry AT johntblake aproductioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry AT richarddonald aproductioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry AT benschulman productioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry AT johntblake productioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry AT richarddonald productioncapacityinvestmentdecisionmakingtoolfortheindoorverticalfarmingindustry |