Three growers need the same crew. One has olives ready now, another can wait, and the third is starting to lose fruit to the ground. The order of their phone calls need not be the best picking order. Even if they agreed on one, it would still have to fit the mill’s capacity.
Coordinating a harvest means coordinating limited resources and consequences for different people. Olearia studies this while keeping each member’s own crew, coordinating shared capacity and picking dates. This is a TRL 3 proof of concept with a synthetic 300-member cooperative. We have neither run a pilot nor measured gains in a real cooperative.
The question an average cannot answer
Higher total value does not mean everyone improves. A member may pick early to free capacity for others; another may wait and lose quality. Settlement rules then determine how much of that change reaches each person.
We therefore examine both the collective result and who gains, who loses and by how much. A useful plan must fit the mill and be acceptable to its participants under explicit rules.
The rest is for key holders
The background is open. We share the results, the figures and the full exam with the cooperatives, olive mills and research teams we work with.
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