Research Paper Conceptual model of fleet management in agriculture CG Sørensen, DD Bochtis* University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Blichers Alle ´, 8830 Tjele, Denmark article info Article history: Received 14 May 2009 Received in revised form 18 August 2009 Accepted 15 September 2009 Published online 25 October 2009 Agricultural fleet management is viewed as farmers’ or machine contractors’ decision- making concerning, for example, resource allocation, scheduling, routing, and real-time monitoring of vehicles and materials. In order to optimise this management task, fleet management tools are used for decision support to improve scheduling, routing and other operational measures for a fleet of agricultural machines. Additionally, fleet management involves the process of supervising the use and maintenance of machines and the asso- ciated administrative functions including the coordination and dissemination of tasks and related information for solving the heterogeneous scheduling and routing problems. In order to analyse the complex situation of how to develop an effective Fleet Management System, a conceptual model was developed based on a participatory approach and subsequent system analysis. This involved identification of the scope of the system, identification of user requirements, conceptual modelling, identification of actors and decision processes, and information-needs modelling. A holistic view and scope of the system is presented together with the system constraints. The results build on extracted information from selected actors in the agricultural domain. The systems components are depicted and linked to the subsequent conceptual model of the overall system as an outline for a subsequent tool development and implementation. ª 2009 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The structural development and the imposed requirements within agriculture imply that innovative technology and knowledge management will be decisive for the future arable farmer (Fountas et al., 2006). Especially, the maximisation of agricultural machine productivity is an important element in the continued efforts of planning and controlling resource input in arable farming. Different forms of driving instruc- tions and advice on optimising the execution of field opera- tions provide the possibility of influencing a number of factors pertaining to the operational efficiency (e.g., Palmer et al., 2003; Sørensen and Nielsen, 2005; Bochtis et al., 2007). The operational efficiency expresses the ratio between the actual in-field productivity and the maximum theoretical produc- tivity defined by the maximum operating speed and maximum working width (Witney, 1988). Especially for larger machines, it is important to maintain a high efficiency as the non-productive time elements represent a greater propor- tional loss in potential machine production (Sørensen, 2003; Søgaard and Sørensen, 2004). A preliminary step in the direction of achieving increasing operational efficiency is a renewed focus on the usage of advanced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and formal management models in agriculture (Sørensen et al., 2008). In many ways, this development may be compared with the mechanization of agriculture in the 1950s and 60s. At that time, the introduction of the tractor, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: Dionysis.Bochtis@agrsci.dk (DD Bochtis). Available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/15375110 1537-5110/$ – see front matter ª 2009 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2009.09.009 biosystems engineering 105 (2010) 41–50