EVALUATION OF THE QUALITY OF VEHICLE SERVICE WHEN UNLOADING PRODUCTS DURING THE COMBINE HARVESTING OF HEADED CABBAGE
When combine harvesting cabbages, transportation of products from the field to the vegetable store is carried out mainly in the body of the vehicle in bulk or in containers. In the first case, vehicles are unloaded manually in vegetable stores. In the second case - with the help of a forklift. So, vehicles are idle during the unloading of products for a significant amount of time, especially in the first case. In this regard, in order to assess the quality of service of vehicles, the unloading process was modeled on the basis of the queuing theory. The process in consideration was studied in the form of a multi-channel system with waiting, as the process of servicing vehicles on unloading is a multiple execution of tasks of the same type. In addition, vehicles that cannot be serviced immediately due to the employment of teams of loaders (or forklifts), may be waiting on the site in front of the vegetable store. In the model of this process, the number of teams of loaders and forklifts was accepted as channels of systems. As a result of modeling the essence of the occurring phenomena was revealed and indicators of quality of functioning of systems are defined. In particular, it was found that the number of vehicles waiting to be serviced in both cases decreased with the increase in the number of service channels. Thus, when unloading vehicles manually by three teams of loaders, the number of waiting vehicles in the queue will be fewer than one unit, and when the vegetable store takes products in containers, one forklift truck handles the unloading. Taking into account the obtained results, it is recommended to use at least three teams of loaders when unloading cabbage manually, and one forklift is enough when unloading products in containers mechanically