Cotton Logistics as a Model for Analysis of Biomass Transportation Issues

More than 90% of the cost to transport biomass is fixed cost of the truck. To reduce this fixed cost,the central processing plant will have to increase the utilization of these trucks. That is, more biomass has to betransported by these trucks every day. A First-In-First-Out (FIFO) logistic system of a cotton gin in southeastVirginia was analyzed to determine their average truck utilization and the effects of decreasing the number oftrucks.

The results of the simulation show with six trucks, average truck utilization was 73.8% and the gin utilizationwas 76.87%, for five trucks, truck utilization went up to 86.22% but the gin utilization went down to 69.65%.Increasing mean truck travel time from 95.61 min to 105.61 min increased truck utilization to 81.9% (for 6trucks) and decreased gin utilization to 75.41%. Similarly, truck utilization went up to 89.5% and gin utilizationwent down to 66.71% for five trucks. It was determined that the gin cannot operate efficiently with 5 trucks.Module call-in rates currently constrain truck utilization rates. Increasing customer base from current levels isthe only way to increase truck utilization factor.