Application of the promethee II method in overcoming the bottleneck problem in an emergency department

Emergency department (ED) is a primary healthcare department and a key component of the whole healthcare system. The original mission of ED is to primarily handle only emergent situations. However, ED visits include a wide range of illnesses and injuries that is truly emergencies, urgent, semi-urgent, and non-urgent cases.As a result of this, EDs are overcrowded and the length of stay (LOS) of patients has increased, whereas quality of service has decreased. The decision maker (DM) should analyze and eliminate this problem in order to allocate and optimize the hospital resources more efficiently. This work discusses the application of PROMETHEE II method in solving the bottleneck problem in an ED. PROMETHEE II is a prominent method for multi criteria decision aid (MCDA) that builds a complete ranking on a set of potential actions. Microsoft Excel 2010 and Visual PROMETHEE software are used to implement the method. The emergency department in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Krian is taken as the case study in our work. The result shows that improve the time taken to deliver test result ranked first in improving the patient flow and the most sensitive criterion are to reduce the hospital infections

Transient analysis of M/M/1 queuing theory: an overview

Queuing is a common phenomenon in our daily life. Mathematical study on waiting line or queues is called queuing theory. Generally, queuing theory has been used extensively by service industry in order to optimize the service effectiveness and improve the customer satisfaction since it helps an organization to understand how a system operates while reviewing the efficiency of the system. Most of queuing theory deals with system performance in steady-state condition. That is, most queuing models assume that the system has been operating with the same arrival rate, service rate and other characteristics for a sufficiently long time that the probabilistic behavior of performance measures such as queue length is independent of initial condition. However, in many situations, the parameters defining the queuing system may vary over time. Under such circumstances, it is most unlikely that such systems are in equilibrium. This paper reviews the transient behavior (no assumption of statistical equilibrium) of the queuing model. The aim is to provide sufficient information to analysts who are interested in studying queuing theory with this special characteristic

A reciprocated result using an approach of multiobjective stochastic linear programming models with partial uncertainty

This study focuses on solving multiobjective stochastic linear programming (MSLP) problems with partial information on probability distribution. The method presented in this paper utilises the concept of ranking function and linguistic hedges in the fuzzy transformation stage to take into account the internal values of the probability distribution. An adaptive arithmetic average approach is then used to convert the multiobjective problems into a single objective problem. Comparison of results with existing methods in the literature is presented which shows that the method presented performs as good as the existing methods in terms of solution quality but better in terms of computational effort

The Integrated Aircraft Routing and Crew Pairing Problem: ILP Based Formulations

Minimization of cost is very important in airline as great profit is an important objective for any airline system. One way to minimize the costs in airline is by developing an integrated planning process. Airline planning consists of many difficult operational decision problems including aircraft routing and crew pairing problems. These two sub-problems, though interrelated in practice, are usually solved sequentially leading to suboptimal solutions. We propose an integrated aircraft routing and crew pairing problem model, one approach to generate the feasible aircraft routes and crew pairs, followed by three approaches to solve the integrated model. The integrated aircraft routing and crew scheduling problem is to determine a minimum cost aircraft routes and crew schedules while each flight leg is covered by one aircraft and one crew. The first approach is an integer programming solution method, the second formulation is developed in a way to lend itself to be used efficiently by Dantzig Wolfe decomposition whereas the third one is formulated as a Benders decomposition method. Encouraging results are obtained when tested on four types of aircraft based on local flights in Malaysia for one week flight cycle

MILP model for integrated line balancing and model sequencing problems for Mixed-Model Two-Sided Assembly Line

This research explores two interrelated problems in Mixed-Model Two-Sided Assembly Line (MMTSAL), which are line balancing and model sequencing. These two problems are solved simultaneously using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) with the objectives of minimizing total utility work and idle time by considering various practical constraints. The problem is analyzed using small-size to large-sized test cases using General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS) with the solver CPLEX. Experimental results indicate that integrating the problems help to minimize the proposed objective function. Also, it is found that the feasible solution for model sequence with the assignment of tasks to assembly line is optimal

Prediction in ungauged river basin in the west coast of peninsular Malaysia using linear regression model

A linear multiple regression based regionalization method has been proposed in this study to simulate streamflow in ungauged catchment in the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. Identification of unit Hydrographs And Component flows from Rainfall, Evapotranspiration and Streamflow (IHACRES) rainfall-runoff model was used to develop the relationship between model parameters and physical catchment descriptors of eight gauged catchments distributed over the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. The IHACRES model was calibrated and validated individually for each catchment with the available data for the time periods varying between three to sixteen years. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency index was used as criteria to evaluate the model performance. As the relationships between the physical catchment descriptors and hydrologic response characteristics are not necessarily linear, different forms of transformations were performed in order to find the most appropriate relationship. Finally, the obtained regression equations were used for simulating stream discharge in Sg Layang catchment located in the south of peninsular Malaysia. The result of the regional model was compared with observed monthly stream flow data of the catchment to assess the ability of regional model. The obtained results revealed that the regional model was able to replicate the historical monthly average flow. However, the relationship between the catchment area and hydrologic response characteristics were not fully understood by regional model which emphasize the need of consideration of other dominant catchment factors for prediction in ungauged basin

Challenge in applying quantitative analysis on bull semen quality in Malaysia

There is a huge challenge in managing quality control (QC) for Malaysian semen production centres (MSPCs) supplying bull semen to breeders and State Department of Veterinary (SDV). MSPCs are moving away from subjective semen assessment that is largely uncorrelated to field fertility, to objective semen analyses that incorporate computer assisted sperm analysis (CASA) and flow cytometry. A quantitative analysis (QA) approach to semen analysis using a combination of CASA and flow cytometry can provide MSPCs with the highest QC for bull semen production. This paper will describe how this QA approach could be applied in MSPCs to establish QC procedures of bull semen production before the release of the product in the field

A study of vehicle routing problem via trade-off ranking method

Vehicle routing defines selecting the minimum cost, distance, and/or time path from a depot to several alternatives for a goods or service to reach its destination. The objective of most routing problem is to minimize the total cost of providing the service. But other objectives also may come into play, particularly in the public sector. For emergency services, such as ambulance, police, and fire engine, minimizing the response time to an incident is of primary importance. A few routing algorithms do not use a deterministic algorithm to find the "best" route for a goods to get from its original source to its destination. Instead, to avoid congestion, a few algorithms use a randomized algorithm that routes a path to a randomly picked intermediate destination, and from there to its true destination. In this paper, the trade-off ranking method is used to solve for the vehicle routing treated as a conflicting multi-criteria problem. The integration of the trade-off ranking method into the vehicle routing problem gives another perspective on how to solve the problem, hence broadened the decision support system for the vehicle routing problem

Designing optimal set of experiments by using bayesian method in methyl iodide adsorption

This paper deals with the design and analysis of the best sets of experiments by using Bayesian Method in the presence of prior knowledge. However, the model presented is not completely general since it is restricted to solve this particular problem, that is to find the best conditions to adsorp Methyl Iodide released after a nuclear reaction

A simulated annealing approach for uncapacitated continuous location-allocation problem with zone-dependent fixed cost

Location analysis is concerned with locating one or more service facilities while fulfilling some constraints such as the demand of the customers and minimizing the total cost. Despite the cost of transporting goods or services, there is a fixed cost associated with opening a given facility such as the cost of the land, taxes or trunking (or hauling) cost to supply product, services and labour. This cost may vary from one area to another. The aim of this study is to put forward a Simulated Annealing (SA) procedure for solving the uncapacitated continuous location-allocation problem in the presence of a zone-dependent fixed cost. Simulated Annealing is one of the meta-heuristic methods derived from the annealing process of a solid. Several parameters in SA will be tested such as initial starting points, initial temperature and cooling schedules. Data set for 50 customer problem taken from the literature is used. The problems of locating 2 to 15 facilities are solved by using C++. The computational results are presented with encouraging results