Simulation-Aided Capacity Selection of Confinement Facilities for Swine Production

Abstract

ABSTRACT Amethod to select the optimum capacity of swine production faciUties is described. The method is based on a simulation model that explicitly takes into account the stochastic and dynamic nature of the swine production system. Scheduling swine facilities is difficult due to the stochastic nature of the biology of swine. The number of animals in each facility of a complete confinement system fluctuates with time. Therefore building capacity calculated from average herd performance results in temporary crowding which adversely affects herd performance. To quantify these adverse effects, a concept of crowding index was defined and the penalty cost of crowding is calculated for different capacities of a building. The capacity at which the sum of the annual crowding penalty cost and the marginal annual building costs was minimum was selected as the optimum economic capacity. The method was used to select optimum capacities of breeding-gestating, multiple-room farrowing, nursing, and growing-finishing buildings for a 100-sow farrow-to-finish complete confinement continuous swine production system. The optimum capacities were 7 to 14% larger than calculated from average herd performance values, and were not very sensitive to the relative costs of building construction and hog production.