An investigation into the optimal length of sugar cane billets

This paper presents an investigation into the optimal length of a sugar cane billet. Data suceed from the literature, private communications, and unpublished work of specialists at various mills and research companies were used to develop relationships between the costs incurred in processing sugar cane and the billet length. Using these relationships, a computer model was developed to predict the cost of different billet lengths to the sugar industry. A sensitivity analysis was performed and the relative importance of the billet length relationships was examined.