Bulk Feed Distribution Operation 



1. Characteristics — The bulk feed distribution operation consists 

 of loading out trucks at a mill, travel to and unloading at one or more 

 production units, and retvirning to the mill for another load. The opera- 

 tion is under the supervision of a dispatcher who prepares the daily 

 delivery order schedule and assigns orders for delivery to the drivers. 

 There is also an administrative staff for purposes of decision making and 

 maintaining various records. The bulk feed distribution operation is 

 closely coordinated with the feed manufacturing operation. 



2. Technical Relationships — Before solving for the number of 

 trucks and drivers needed by each firm to distribute feed at each den- 

 sity level, the technology and related physical input-output relationships 

 must be defined. It is assumed that each firm uses 12-ton capacity trucks 

 with four equal size compartments and a pneumatic unloading system. 



Each trip includes three kinds of operations. These are (a) loading 

 at the mill, (b) travel to production units and return to the mill, and 

 (c) unloading at the production units. The data needed to develop rela- 

 tionships were collected from firms utilizing the 12-ton capacity truck. 



(a) The loading stage commences when the driver arrives at the 

 mill. The driver obtains the delivery orders for the trip from the dis- 

 patcher and positions the truck under the finished feed holding bins. 

 The driver loads the quantities shown on the order into the compart- 

 ments and records the net weight on each order slip. In no case does the 

 driver put part or all of two orders for the same or different formula- 

 tions in the same compartment. 



The equation relating time to the tons loaded is: 



Hi = 0.133 + 0.0167T 

 where Hj is the hours to load T tons of feed. 



(b) The travel period is the hours for the round trip from the mill 

 to production units and return. During this period, the driver may take 

 some time for personal needs svich as a coffee break or lunch. The equa- 

 tion for this stage is: 



Hs = 0.435 + 0.0221RT 

 where Ho is the hours of travel for the round trip of RT miles. This 

 eqiiation is used to calculate the travel time from the mill to the average 

 location in each band and return to the mill at each density level as 

 shown in Table 13. 



(c) The unloading time is the period required to position the truck 

 at the poultry house, attach a pipe from the l)lower unit to a pipe lead- 

 ing to a bulk bin, start the blower unit to unload the feed. Once the feed 

 is unloaded, the set-up procedure is reversed. The equation relating 

 time to the tons unloaded is: 



Ho = 0.0702 + 0.1146T 

 whereHo is the hours to unload T tons. 



Feed Distribution Model 



1. Conditions and Assumptions — A number of assumptions and 

 conditions pertinent to the analysis follow: 



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