A heuristic procedure to solve the project staffing problem with discrete time/resource trade-offs and personnel scheduling constraints

Highlights • Project staffing with discrete time/resource trade-offs and calendar constraints. • An iterated local search procedure is proposed. • Different problem decomposition techniques are applied. Abstract When scheduling projects under resource constraints, assumptions are typically made with respect to the resource availability and activities are planned each with its own duration and resource requirements. In resource scheduling, important assumptions are made with respect to the staffing requirements. Both problems are typically solved in a sequential manner leading to a suboptimal outcome. We integrate these two interrelated scheduling problems to determine the optimal personnel budget that minimises the overall cost. Integrating these problems increases the scheduling flexibility, which improves the overall performance. In addition, we consider some resource demand flexibility in this research as an activity can be performed in multiple modes. In this paper, we present an iterated local search procedure for the integrated multi-mode project scheduling and personnel staffing problem. Detailed computational experiments are presented to evaluate different decomposition heuristics and comparison is made with alternative optimisation techniques

Welcome to OR&S! Where students, academics and professionals come together

In this manuscript, an overview is given of the activities done at the Operations Research and Scheduling (OR&S) research group of the faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Ghent University. Unlike the book published by [1] that gives a summary of all academic and professional activities done in the field of Project Management in collaboration with the OR&S group, the focus of the current manuscript lies on academic publications and the integration of these published results in teaching activities. An overview is given of the publications from the very beginning till today, and some of the topics that have led to publications are discussed in somewhat more detail. Moreover, it is shown how the research results have been used in the classroom to actively involve students in our research activities

An Optimisation-based Framework for Complex Business Process: Healthcare Application

The Irish healthcare system is currently facing major pressures due to rising demand, caused by population growth, ageing and high expectations of service quality. This pressure on the Irish healthcare system creates a need for support from research institutions in dealing with decision areas such as resource allocation and performance measurement. While approaches such as modelling, simulation, multi-criteria decision analysis, performance management, and optimisation can – when applied skilfully – improve healthcare performance, they represent just one part of the solution. Accordingly, to achieve significant and sustainable performance, this research aims to develop a practical, yet effective, optimisation-based framework for managing complex processes in the healthcare domain. Through an extensive review of the literature on the aforementioned solution techniques, limitations of using each technique on its own are identified in order to define a practical integrated approach toward developing the proposed framework. During the framework validation phase, real-time strategies have to be optimised to solve Emergency Department performance issues in a major hospital. Results show a potential of significant reduction in patients average length of stay (i.e. 48% of average patient throughput time) whilst reducing the over-reliance on overstretched nursing resources, that resulted in an increase of staff utilisation between 7% and 10%. Given the high uncertainty in healthcare service demand, using the integrated framework allows decision makers to find optimal staff schedules that improve emergency department performance. The proposed optimum staff schedule reduces the average waiting time of patients by 57% and also contributes to reduce number of patients left without treatment to 8% instead of 17%. The developed framework has been implemented by the hospital partner with a high level of success

Local search for the surgery admission planning problem

We present a model for the surgery admission planning problem, and a meta-heuristic algorithm for solving it. The problem involves assigning operating rooms and dates to a set of elective surgeries, as well as scheduling the surgeries of each day and room. Simultaneously, a schedule is created for each surgeon to avoid double bookings. The presented algorithm uses simple Relocate and Two-Exchange neighbourhoods, governed by an iterated local search framework. The problem's search space associated with these move operators is analysed for three typical fitness surfaces, representing different compromises between patient waiting time, surgeon overtime, and waiting time for children in the morning on the day of surgery. The analysis shows that for the same problem instances, the different objectives give fitness surfaces with quite different characteristics. We present computational results for a set of benchmarks that are based on the admission planning problem in a chosen Norwegian hospital

Integrated Planning in Hospitals: A Review

Efficient planning of scarce resources in hospitals is a challenging task for which a large variety of Operations Research and Management Science approaches have been developed since the 1950s. While efficient planning of single resources such as operating rooms, beds, or specific types of staff can already lead to enormous efficiency gains, integrated planning of several resources has been shown to hold even greater potential, and a large number of integrated planning approaches have been presented in the literature over the past decades. This paper provides the first literature review that focuses specifically on the Operations Research and Management Science literature related to integrated planning of different resources in hospitals. We collect the relevant literature and analyze it regarding different aspects such as uncertainty modeling and the use of real-life data. Several cross comparisons reveal interesting insights concerning, e.g., relations between the modeling and solution methods used and the practical implementation of the approaches developed. Moreover, we provide a high-level taxonomy for classifying different resource-focused integration approaches and point out gaps in the literature as well as promising directions for future research

Integrated Planning in Hospitals:A Review

Efficient planning of scarce resources in hospitals is a challenging task for which a large variety of Operations Research and Management Science approaches have been developed since the 1950s. While efficient planning of single resources such as operating rooms, beds, or specific types of staff can already lead to enormous efficiency gains, integrated planning of several resources has been shown to hold even greater potential, and a large number of integrated planning approaches have been presented in the literature over the past decades.This paper provides the first literature review that focuses specifically on the Operations Research and Management Science literature related to integrated planning of different resources in hospitals. We collect the relevant literature and analyze it regarding different aspects such as uncertainty modeling and the use of real-life data. Several cross comparisons reveal interesting insights concerning, e.g., relations between the modeling and solution methods used and the practical implementation of the approaches developed. Moreover, we provide a high-level taxonomy for classifying different resource-focused integration approaches and point out gaps in the literature as well as promising directions for future research

Applying Mathematical Models to Surgical Patient Planning

On a daily basis surgeons, nurses, and managers face cancellation of surgery, peak demands on wards, and overtime in operating rooms. Moreover, the lack of an integral planning approach for operating rooms, wards, and intensive care units causes low resource utilization and makes patient flows unpredictable. An ageing population and advances in medicine are putting the available healthcare budget under great pressure. Under these circumstances, hospitals are seeking innovative ways of providing optimal quality at the lowest costs. This thesis provides hospitals with instruments for optimizing surgical patient planning. We describe a cyclic and integrated operating room planning approach, called master surgical scheduling, and models for efficient planning of emergency operations. Application of these instruments enables the simultaneous optimization of the utilization of operating rooms, ward and intensive care units. Moreover, iteratively executing a master schedule of surgical case types provides steady and thus more predictable patient flows in hospitals. The approach is generic and so can be implemented taking account of specific characteristics of individual hospitals. Prerequisites for successful implementation of logistical models in hospitals comprise sufficient room for last-minute changes as well as keeping the ultimate responsibility for individual patient scheduling with medical specialists. Both are satisfied in the master surgical scheduling approach which has already been successfully implemented in hospitals