Establishing a decision support system for cost in dairy farming sector

The feed mixture that meets all the nutrient requirements of dairy cattle for one day is called ration. Preparing ration is a critical process for operators due to the necessity of balancing nutrient components and costs. In this study, a Decision Support System has been developed especially for small sized dairy farms. The Decision Support System prepares rations for different groups of dairy cattle by using the market prices of feeds and estimated feed prices for the future seasons. The rations prepared in the study were designed for the animal groups that are present at all times in a dairy cattle farm. A total of 6 cattle groups were included in the study: 37 feed ingredients and their market prices for these 30 months were used as data sets. The construction of the Decision Support System began with the selection of the most effective price forecasting method. Grey Forecasting, Exponential Smoothing and Regression techniques were used and it was determined that the best estimator was the DGM (1,1) method which is based on Grey Forecasting. With the DGM (1,1) method, price forecasts for the 2nd half of 2023 were made and included in the data set by blurring to be used in the ration preparation processes of the future seasons. In the process of preparing the rations, Linear Programming methods were used for models using market prices since the prices are known with precision, and Fuzzy Linear Programming methods were used for models with fuzzy objective coefficients proposed by Lai and Hwang (1992) since there may be some deviations in the predicted prices. After ensuring the consistency and accuracy of the models, all the analysis methods used were integrated into a software using C# programming language. This Decision Support System, called 'CoWSt', has a dynamic structure. CoWSt: can perform all calculations automatically, allow additions/subtractions regarding raw materials and updates regarding models. Although there are similar software in the sector, CoWSt is different from these software in that it can also prepare rations for future periods. In this respect, the Decision Support System is expected to provide fast and effective information to the management and planning processes of producers.