Optimization of Vineyard Task Planning: Constraint Programming Based Tool with Customizable Domain

Producing grapes for wine is a complex and delicate process that requires meticulous execution of numerous tasks to reach the desired quality and yield. Wine producers dedicate many resources to specialized teams, from vine pruning in the early months of the year to harvesting when the fruit is ripe. Scheduling the available workforce and resources to complete these tasks optimally is of utmost importance.

In this context, parting from an initial schedule could assist in the decision-making process and enhance the outcomes. With this objective, the Vitigeoss Business Service has been developed within the context of the Vitigeoss project. It is a generalized scheduling tool based on Constraint Programming, which assigns tasks to work teams on specific timeslots. For this, it uses First Fit Decreasing and Local Search as search algorithms. It also offers the capabilities of choosing between a set of constraints defined alongside wine producers, and focusing on one of three objective functions: time, cost, and environmental impact. In this document, a series of updates on the constraint decision process and customization of the domain are introduced, and its implications for the results obtained are analized.

The Vitigeoss Business Service was available during the 2023 campaign, and its results have been validated with actual planning data from three use cases, showing improvements in the use of resources and finalization time.