53. Optimizing Total Flow Time in Hospital Sterilization Departments Using Column Generation
Invited abstract in session TC-1: Analytics and healthcare management, stream Sessions.
Tuesday, 13:30-15:00Room: NTNU, Realfagbygget R5
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Robin Schlembach
|
| Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Augsburg | |
| 2. | Sebastian Schiffels
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| Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Universität Augsburg | |
| 3. | Jens Brunner
|
| Department of Technology, Management, and Economics, Technical University of Denmark |
Abstract
The Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) ensures, that reusable medical devices are sterilized and available for operating procedures. However, scheduling the sterilization stage, where instruments are batched and processed, poses challenges due to demand variability and strict turnaround requirements. We model the sterilization process as a parallel batch scheduling problem with job release dates, sizes, and family-dependent processing times, aiming to minimize total flow time. Given the problem’s NP-hard nature, standard solvers struggle with realistic instances. To address this, we develop a column generation heuristic that decomposes the problem by job families, enabling fast convergence. Additionally, a specialized heuristic efficiently solves subproblems and generates promising columns. Validated on real-world CSSD data, our approach solves instances with over 200 jobs in an average of 2 minutes while maintaining an LP-IP gap below 1%. This scalable method enhances scheduling efficiency, reduces total flow time, and improves hospital workflow.
Keywords
- Resource scheduling
- Healthcare management
Status: accepted
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