Vitner, G., Ruppin Academic Center, School of Engineering, Israel
Bechar, A., Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, Israel

The study investigates the issue of reducing the working hours in the packing house of a farm growing green ornamentals. The farm under study consists of 6.3 hectares and employs 6 workers. It grows 4.0 ha of Ruscus Hypoglossum in screen houses, 1.3 ha of Maireana Sedifolia in open fields, 0.4 ha of Ornithogalum Thyrsoides and 0.6 ha of Globularia in green houses. The annual yield of the farm in 2010 was 3.0 million branches. During the six months of November to April there are very large demands for Ruscus Hypoglossum and Maireana Sedifolia, where the demand for Ornithogalum Thyrsoides starts on April and Globularia grows all over the year. The objective of the study was to increase the yield in order to satisfy increasing demand thus improving revenue. Time studies were conducted to define the time standards of work elements and to verify the productive working hours versus nonproductive/service periods. It was found that 34% of the time is devoted to nonproductive processes. A computer simulation model was developed using the Arena. The model inputs are the quantities to be delivered, number of workers per station in the packing house. Time studies revealed that the 'length sorting' station of the Ruscus is a bottleneck. Thus, five alternatives were tested where each alternative examined a different working method (manual work with different number of workers with/without additional support of mechanical sorting) at the length sorting work station. Simulation results show that the best alternative increased the yield by 38%.