The purpose of this study was to analyze the problems that must be resolved in the short and long term to improve rice productivity in Nicaragua, where the current rice self-sufficiency rate is 73%. First, after selecting varieties with high adaptability to various cultivation environmental conditions, it is necessary to thoroughly manage seed purity to supply certified seeds. In rice cultivation technology, it needs to improve seedling standing and weeding effect by improving soil leveling, and watersaving cultivation technology. Also, proper fertilization and planting density must be established in irrigated and rain-fed areas. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity by collecting and training with the latest agricultural technology information, by revitalizing the union rather than the individual farmer. It is necessary to develop varieties highly adaptable to the Nicaragua cultivation environment, as well as to expand irrigation facilities and cultivation technology suitable for weather conditions June- July in rain-fed areas. Last, it is necessary to maintain the consistency of agricultural policy for continuous and stable rice production, in response to climate change such as drought or intermittent heavy rain.

The fourth industrial revolution encourages manufacturing industry to pursue a new paradigm shift to meet customers' diverse demands by managing the production process efficiently. However, it is not easy to manage efficiently a variety of tasks of all the processes including materials management, production management, process control, sales management, and inventory management. Especially, to set up an efficient production schedule and maintain appropriate inventory is crucial for tailored response to customers' needs. This paper deals with the optimized inventory policy in a steel company that produces granule products under supply contracts of three targeted on-time delivery rates. For efficient inventory management, products are classified into three groups A, B and C, and three differentiated production cycles and safety factors are assumed for the targeted on-time delivery rates of the groups. To derive the optimized inventory policy, we experimented eight cases of combined safety stock and data analysis methods in terms of key performance metrics such as mean inventory level and sold-out rate. Through simulation experiments based on real data we find that the proposed optimized inventory policy reduces inventory level by about 9%, and increases surplus production capacity rate, which is usually used for the production of products in Group C, from 43.4% to 46.3%, compared with the existing inventory policy.

This paper deals with the production plan for the foaming process, the core part of the refrigerator manufacturing process. In accordance with this change, the refrigerator manufacturing process has also been converted into the mixed-model production system and it is necessary to optimize the production release pattern for the foaming process. The pattern optimization is to create a mixed-model combination which can minimize the number of setup operations and maintain mixed-model production. The existing method is a simple heuristic that depends on the demand priority. Its disadvantages are low mixed-model configuration rate and high setup frequency. Therefore, demand partitioning occurs frequently. In this study, we introduce the tolerance concept and propose a new pattern optimization algorithm based the large neighborhood search (LNS). The proposed algorithm was applied to a refrigerator plant and it was found that mixed-model configuration rate can be improved without demand partitioning.