Abstract :
Industrial fish-processing firms must operate against a backdrop of uncertainty in the demand for fish (the raw material) and uncertainty in the demand for final products. Integrated firms must dispatch a harvesting fleet to land required catch at one or more processing plants. Typically fishing trips for individual vessels last for up to two weeks. In planning harvesting schedules, the decision maker must take into account the impact of the uncertainties mentioned above. The purpose of this research is to gain insight into the effectiveness of rolling horizon planning as a mechanism for coping with uncertainty, and to establish the nature of the relationship between the length of the frozen and planning horizons and the expected annual costs of fishing plans. Such insight will be extremely valuable to fleet harvest planners who must attempt to minimize the landed cost of raw fish.
Vertically integrated fish-processing firms must dispatch their fishing fleet to meet short-term or long-term requirements for raw fish at the various processing plants. Fleet harvesting activity must be planned against a backdrop of uncertain catch rates, fish quality, and demand. In this paper, we investigate the potential for using rolling horizon planning as a strategy for managing the impact of these uncertainties, particularly in catch rates. We study the impact of the length of the planning and frozen horizons on the cost performance of fishing fleet schedules. Results for several scenarios involving variable catch rates, variable demands, and alternative rolling/planning horizon combinations are presented.
