Academic articles

An incisional hernia (IH) is a ventral hernia that develops after surgical trauma to the abdominal wall, a laparotomy. IH repair is a common surgery that can generate chronic pain, decreased quality of life, and significant healthcare costs caused by hospital readmissions. The goal of this study is to analyze the clinical pathway of patients having an IH using a medico-administrative database and predictive modeling. Predictive modeling in healthcare is used, among other things, to understand the times of occurrence of complications and associated costs. It enables the simulation of what-if scenarios to propose an improved care pathway for patients who are the most exposed.

Due to various production and market factors, flexibility is a key point in semiconductor manufacturing supply chain design. However, the increased complexity associated with this flexibility must be effectively managed to leverage the benefits that flexibility provides. The product structure is one of the main factors for enabling the desired result. Product structure representations in the supply chain design include linear, tree, and network. In this paper, the researchers explain the problem by a real case merger where risk and opportunities based on the choice of product structure representation in the supply chain design were relevant and no final solution initially was determined.

This paper addresses the problem of controlling the Work-In-Process (WIP) in semiconductor manufacturing by using a global scheduling approach and manufacturing scheduling software. A WIP balancing strategy is proposed to minimize the product mix variability in terms of throughput and cycle time. This strategy is enforced using a global scheduling optimization model which is formulated as a linear programming model. The global scheduling model is coupled with a generic multi-method simulation model built with manufacturing scheduling software for evaluation purpose.

During recent years, Autonomous Vehicle Storage and Retrieval Systems (AVS/RS) have been widely applied in warehouse optimization to meet the increasing demand for rapid and flexible large-scale storage and retrieval tasks. This paper focuses on the operations control strategies with regard to the conveyor system, rack storage system, and pick-up system in order to maximize the system’s throughput capacity and minimize the storage/retrieval times of items. The study is based on a large-scale shoe manufacturer’s warehouse optimization and provides insights for system management.

In this paper, we simulate allocation policies for a two-stage inventory system that receives perfect advance demand information (ADI) from customers belonging to different demand classes using AnyLogic as supply chain management software. Demands for each customer class are generated by independent Poisson processes while the processing times are deterministic. All customers in the same class have the same demand lead time (the difference between the due date and the requested date) and back-ordering costs.

Each stage in the inventory system follows order-base-stock-policies where the replenishment order is issued upon arrival of a customer order. The researchers employ discrete event simulation to obtain output parameters such as inventory costs, fill rates, waiting time, and order allocation times. A numerical analysis is conducted to identify a reasonable policy to use in this type of system.

The ever-increasing demand for fresh and healthy products initiated an urgency for transportation system analysis and effective planning for Agri-Fresh Produce Supply Chains (AFPSC). However, AFPSC faces many challenges, including product vulnerability to market disruption and limited shelf-life. In case of a no-deal Brexit (i.e., the UK leaving the EU without an agreement), trade between Ireland and the UK will most probably be subjected to customs control. In effect, transportation delays and products deterioration rates will increase.

Based on interviews with an Irish AFPSC forwarder, a simulation model was developed to investigate different systems’ dynamics and operating rules under different delay patterns on the (yet non-existent) inner-Irish border.

Besides transportation costs the punctual delivery of the goods is a key factor for mode choice in intermodal transportation networks. However, only a limited number of studies have included stochastic transportation time in Service Network Design, which refers to decisions regarding transportation mode and services, so far.

The paper on hand combines a Sample Average Approximation approach with Discrete Event Simulation for transportation network optimization with stochastic transportation times. This includes the corresponding vehicle routing problem for road vehicles. The share of orders transported by intermodal road-rail vs. unimodal road transportation in dependence of costs and delays of the trains is evaluated for a generic transportation relation in Central Europe. The data is backed by empirical data for transportation orders and delay distributions.

A common challenge in field service planning is to evaluate different design choices, related to staffing decisions, technician scheduling strategies, and technological improvements in order to make the system more efficient. This work provides a simulation-based optimization tool to support decision makers in tackling this challenging problem. The proposed framework relies on an optimization engine for the generation of the daily plans.

The study uses AnyLogic as field service planning software to evaluate the applicability of such plans by taking into account the stochastic factors. Furthermore, an interface manages the communication between these two components and allows a feedback loop between the simulator and the optimizer to achieve more robust plans. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated through a business case to evaluate different staffing decisions.

Evolution of technology and the complexity of the medical system have contributed to the increasing interest in telemedicine. The purpose of this paper is to present a discrete event simulation model of the teledermatology process using the tool TelDerm. The logic of the simulation describes the telemedicine work flow from the detection of the problem to its resolution. The scenarios reflect different changes in the flow in order to quantify the impact of telemedicine on the healthcare system. Several key performance indicators measure medical and administrative workload variations for all human resources involved. In addition, we assess the impact on the patient’s journey through the process.

A steel stock yard for storing the purchased steel plates is the first step of shipbuilding. It is also space where sorting is performed to supply proper steel plates to the cutting process at the right time. Usually, it is difficult to supply all steel plates from one steelwork. Therefore, the deviation of the duration of plate procurement increases in the process of supplying steel plates from multiple steelworks. The changes in production plans from this deviation affect the duration for which the steel plates stay in the stock yard.

To address this problem, shipbuilding yards are researching on efficient management of steel plates in a limited space. In this study, a steel stock yard simulation model was constructed using discrete event simulation.