Detailed and Optimised Space Allocation

So you have invested a fortune in your glasshouses and tunnels, but are you optimising their utilization? With HortiBench's unique visual nursery layout you can allocate space to your batches manually or automatically. Manually drag & drop batch production phases from the list onto the location that you prefer. HortiBench will calculate the number of locations that are needed from the batch size and plant density in this phase. It will then verify that these locations are free over the weeks and days of the production phase.

We will build the layout of your nursery for you with all the Nursery Sites, Departments, Layouts and Climate Environments that you have. Departments can be defined with heated glass, cold glass, polyester tunnel , benches, hanging space, open space, protected space etc. The visual nursery layout can accommodate any type of container that you use and layouts, environments can change over time of course.

Several Nursery Utilisation reports can show you different aspects of the use of your space. Use of the different growing environments per species, Financial Yield of one Department, Percentage of the total space per product group etc. And of course if there is a specific report or chart that you need we can build it for you.

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Maximum Space Utilisation with Combinatorial optimisation

The type of growing environment can change during the time the plant is on your nursery. A plant might start on tables in a heated glasshouse then move to a cold glasshouse then in a tunnel and might finally end up in the open field. The plant densities will vary too with every phase since the plants should be growing and needing more space. Taking into account these different variables and be able to automatically look back and forth in time to see which other batches are planned, HortiBench can place the batches optimally for you. The complexity of these placements cannot be underestimated. Placing a production phase of 4 different batches in a department gives you 4! (factorial) possibilities, that is 24. Placing 4 different batches with 2 production phases gives you 5040 possible ways to do this (8!). How many batches do you grow and over how many different departments? Combinatorial Optimisation is the research field dealing with this and HortiBench takes this head on with it's Artificial Intelligence scheduling engine based on Evolutionary Optimisation Algorithms. Google's Deep Learning Algorithms are in the news a lot and used in more and more domains. Now you can take advantage of this AI research by using HortiBench for your Optimisation with Neural Networks.

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Fixed Locations or Transport Systems

HortiBench can deal with fixed locations on the floor of your glasshouse or tunnel but also with transport systems like rolling benches which are pushed on manually one after another. Even automated systems like automatic moving bench systems which slowly move through your greenhouse and different environments can be visualised in HortiBench. Our latest addition to the options is the Walking Plant System where each individual pot moves in line through a well thought out production line. Ask us for some implementation videos about these location options.

Track & Trace

With the Track & Trace module you can enter the actually used locations for a batch production phase which HortiBench then uses in the Find Batch function and will also be presented on all reports. HortiBench can also re-calculate plant densities from these locations so that your next planning will be improved and more accurate.

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Movement Minimisation & Department Yield Maximisation

In horticulture, the optimisation of resource allocation and use has become critical. Products must answer the ever growing needs of customers. This has caused an explosion in the number of products, sizes, colours and packaging options a nursery has to provide to its customers. This greatly increases the complexity of product choices and space allocation solutions. Optimisation tools are therefore needed to control this ever increasing complexity.

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