Scheduling with sequence dependent setup times approach in surgery systems

Surgeries are one of the highest income and cost units in the hospitals which are the service business. The main problem motivating this paper is that there is not common structure related to usage of surgery rooms and the scheduling process in surgeries which are under the pressure of hospital management in terms of providing surgery care with the highest quality and the lowest cost.The paper aims to maximize the utilization rate of surgery room in the surgeries under the uncertainities and variability environment. The efficiency of surgery room is measured with the difference between completion time and planned time of the surgeries. Pediatric surgery room in the medical faculty is regarded as the single machine business environment and the schedulling problem is examined. In this paper, we take the sequence dependent setup times between the surgeries and the surgery times as a stochastic process and we develop a sequencing rule for surgeries. We use a simulation method to test the suitability of the developed model to complex and risky surgery environment and benefit from Promodel Simulation Software.The findings of the paper show that the developed model is useful for increasing the the utilization of surgery room efficiency. The model, which can be used in different surgery units and the all surgey environment, will increase the satisfaction of patients, personnel and surgery management in hospitals.Keywords: Scheduling, Single Machine Scheduling Problems with Sequence Dependent Setup Times, Surgery Scheduling, PROMODEL.