Design of shared unit-dose drug distribution network using multi-level particle swarm optimization

Linjie Chen (), Thibaud Monteiro (), Tao Wang () and Eric Marcon ()
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Linjie Chen: University of Saint-Etienne, University of Lyon
Thibaud Monteiro: University of Lyon
Tao Wang: University of Lyon
Eric Marcon: University of Lyon

Health Care Management Science, 2019, vol. 22, issue 2, No 6, 304-317

Abstract: Abstract Unit-dose drug distribution systems provide optimal choices in terms of medication security and efficiency for organizing the drug-use process in large hospitals. As small hospitals have to share such automatic systems for economic reasons, the structure of their logistic organization becomes a very sensitive issue. In the research reported here, we develop a generalized multi-level optimization method – multi-level particle swarm optimization (MLPSO) – to design a shared unit-dose drug distribution network. Structurally, the problem studied can be considered as a type of capacitated location-routing problem (CLRP) with new constraints related to specific production planning. This kind of problem implies that a multi-level optimization should be performed in order to minimize logistic operating costs. Our results show that with the proposed algorithm, a more suitable modeling framework, as well as computational time savings and better optimization performance are obtained than that reported in the literature on this subject.

Keywords: Facility location; Logistic management; Patient safety; Process improvement; Multi-level optimization; Particle swarm optimization; Meta-heuristic; Capacitated location routing problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10729-018-9438-6

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