Developing an efficient scheduling template of a chemotherapy treatment unit: simulation and optimization approach

• Main Author: Ahmed, Zubair
• Other Authors: Elmekkawy, Tarek (Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering)
• Published: Australasian Medical Journal 2012
• Subjects: Identical Parallel Machine; Unequal Job Release; Heuristic; Total Flow Time
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/5084

This study is undertaken to improve the performance of a Chemotherapy Treatment Unit by increasing the throughput of the clinic and reducing the average patients’ waiting time. In order to achieve this objective, a simulation model of this system is built and several scenarios that target matching the arrival pattern of the patients and resources availability are designed and evaluated. After performing detailed analysis, one scenario proves to provide the best system’s performance. The best scenario determines a rational arrival pattern of the patient matching with the nurses’ availability and can serve 22.5% more patients daily. Although the simulation study shows the way to serve more patients daily, it does not explain how to sequence them properly to minimize the average patients’ waiting time. Therefore, an efficient scheduling algorithm was developed to build a scheduling template that minimizes the total flow time of the system.