Throughput Control and Giveaway Minimization of a Poultry Product Batcher

Poultry plants have to operate under challenging deadlines due to recent developments in the industry. They have expressed the need for improved control over their batching process to deal with these changes. In particular, they wish to achieve a target throughput to ensure deadlines are made, while minimizing the giveaway. This paper proposes an algorithm that is capable of controlling such a poultry product batcher, and aims to achieve a target throughput and minimize the giveaway. Using a simulation study we find that both objectives can be achieved under a wide range of settings using the proposed algorithm.