Part Of Total Production Cost Research Articles

Comparison of the Growth Performance of Three Commercial Hybrid Chicken Varieties Using Grain Based Feeds

In poultry, feed costs represent a major part of total production costs. Accordingly, improvement of feed conversion ratio; feed intake: weight gain should be a major objective in most breeding programmes. Growth performance of three commercial broiler hybrids in Nigeria were investigated using a total of 60 unsexed day old chicks consisting of 15 each of Rhode Island White, Plymouth Rock and Rhode Island Red; and 15 of the purebred, the Nigerian Southern light ecotype used as control. The breeds were maintained separately in wooden cages of dimension 120cm × 80cm × 40cm at stocking density of 15 birds per m2 and fed for six weeks using broiler starter feed for first four weeks and finisher feed for next two weeks. The broiler starter feed was composed of broiler concentrate (energy Keauka) 2950Kcal, crude protein 2.1%, crude fibre 4.0%, calcium 1.0%, Available phosphorus 0.48%, cysine 1.2% and methionine 0.5%. The finisher’s diet consisted of 1:1.8 mixtures of broiler concentrate and maize meal. No medication was provided during the study. The result showed Rhode Island White had highest maximum weight gain (2874.43% initial weight), Plymouth Rock (1053.14% initial weight) intermediate and Rhode Island Red (986.12% initial weight) lowest. The pure breed weight gain (441.50% initial weight) was lower than the hybrids. Average feed conversion ratio was highest for Rhode Island White (0.394±0.0047), intermediate for Plymouth Rock (0.373± 0.0051) and Rhode Island Red (0.366± 0.0048) next. The difference was significant (P< 0.05). The purebred had the lowest feed conversion ratio (0.346± 0.0047). Rhode Island Red had the lowest mortality (0%), Rhode Island White (6.67%) intermediate and Plymouth Rock next (20%). The purebred had the highest mortality (33.33%). The study showed Rhode Island White was the most economically viable breed due to its higher growth rate, feed conversion ratio and low mortality rate.

Granulometric composition predicting models after explosion in open-pit mining

Introduction. Drilling and blasting operations are first in the workflow and significantly determine the economic efficiency of the entire mining and primary processing workflow in the enterprise. The cost of drilling and blasting operations is a significant part of total production costs of large mining companies. In this context, mining engineers today are facing a crucial technological problem, i.e. the reduction of the off-gauge fraction yield after the explosion. Research aims to develop the models which forecast the granulometric composition of the rock mass taken down as the original factor in reducing the economic waste of the entire workflow. Methodology. The parameters which influence the results of rock mass fragmentation and the techniques of rock mass granulometric composition forecasting in the course of drilling and blasting were analyzed. Results. The present paper gives a brief overview of the global mineral output; provides information on the extraction of key types of minerals (mineral fuel, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, precious metals, and construction materials), as well as revenues derived from their sale. On the example of domestic companies, approaches to the issue of forecasting the off-gauge fraction yield after the explosion. Summary. Direction for future actions in creating the model forecasting rock mass yield of a certain fraction after the explosion.

Chitosan and Its Derivatives Applied in Harvesting Microalgae for Biodiesel Production: An Outlook

Although oil-accumulating microalgae are a promising feedstock for biodiesel production, large-scale biodiesel production is not yet economically feasible. As harvesting accounts for an important part of total production cost, mass production of microalgae biodiesel requires an efficient low-energy harvesting strategy so as to make biodiesel production economically attractive. Chitosan has emerged as a favorable flocculating agent in harvesting of microalgae. The aim of this paper is to review current research on the application of chitosan and chitosan-derived materials for harvesting microalgae. This offers a starting point for future studies able to invalidate, confirm, or complete the actual findings and to improve knowledge in this field.

A cost-effective approach to stochastic line balancing with off-line repairs

Abstract The layout of production facilities is an important determinant of the productivity potential of a manufacturing enterprise. It is particularly important in the design of assembly lines where the objective is to assign tasks to work stations in such a way as to minimize total variable production costs. Early approaches to the line balancing problem assumed known constant task times and sought a line layout which would produce the desired output with the fewest number of work stations, which is equivalent to minimizing idle time. Studies have shown that task times are random variables, therefore the cost of task incompletion must be considered a part of total production cost. Incompletion cost will be the cost of repairing or completing tasks which cannot be completed within the cycle time after the item has reached the end of the assembly line. This paper describes a methodology for designing approximately minimum cost paced assembly lines under conditions of random task times and off-line repair of incompleted tasks. Task times are assumed to be normally distributed random variables with known means and variances. The methodology consists of heuristically identifying a large number of feasible balances for each of which total costs are computed. The line design with the lowest total is retained as the “best.” In order to evaluate candidate line layouts, a total cost model is developed. Total cost is the sum of normal operating cost—which is simply a function of the number of work stations—and the cost of repairing products containing incompleted tasks. Because this latter cost is a random variable for a given balance, the expected value is used to evaluate a candidate layout. The cost associated with one or more workers exceeding the cycle time is the product of the probability of this happening and the expected cost of off-line repair. The heuristic method for generating feasible balances builds work stations from continually updated lists of precedence satisfying tasks. Qualifying tasks are added to the station as long as the probability of the station exceeding the cycle time remains below a pre-specified threshold. The methodology requires systematically varying this threshold to permit a lowest total cost solution to emerge. The process of generating a large number of balances for a particular threshold is efficient. Evaluating the total costs of the resulting balances takes the majority of the computational time. An experiment was conducted in order to compare the above cost-effective methodology with a purely deterministic approach and a commonly used industrial approximation method for dealing with task time variability. The experiment applied the three methods to four problems from the literature under a variety of repair cost and time variance conditions. In 21 of the 24 cases studied, the stochastic method produced a lower cost balance than the two alternatives. In the remaining 3 cases, the deterministic method also found the lowest cost balance. The stochastic method saved an average of 22.5 percent in total operating cost over the deterministic method and 8.4 percent over the industrial method. The experiment clearly showed the need to explicitly consider task time variability in arriving at a line balance. The stochastic approach of this paper offers large potential savings with no risk of obtaining a less desirable balance and so should be considered for implementation whenever there is a variation in task times. Even for large-scale problems, the computational cost is infinitesimal in the context of assembly line balancing, where very small improvements in productivity can mean substantial increments to profitability.

Energy Policy and Research: Discussion from the ERDA Perspective

If the National Energy Plan is to be achieved, the agricultural sector must contribute by increasing energy use efficiency and must make this its top priority. Systems analysis, including water use, should be applied to the food and fiber industry rather than a fragmented approach to individual problems. ERDA's review and funding system is briefly outlined, and it is pointed out that research emphasis is placed on those areas in which energy costs are a significant part of total production costs.