2015 Informs Annual Meeting

TB35

INFORMS Philadelphia – 2015

TB35 35-Room 412, Marriott Using Technology to Enhance Guest Experiences and Performance in Hospitality Management Cluster: Hospitality, Tourism, and Healthcare Invited Session Chair: Alex Susskind, Cornell University, 350 Statler Hall, School of Hotel Adminstration, Ithaca, NY, 14853, United States of America, ams76@cornell.edu 1 - Picturing Hotels: Attributes of Hotel Images That Attract Consumer Attention Online Stephani K. A. Robson, Senior Lecturer, Cornell University, 255 Statler Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, United States of America, skr4@cornell.edu, Breffni Noone Images have been shown to be an important element in the online hotel choice process. This exploratory study uses eye tracking technology to investigate the attributes of hotel images that attract consumers’ eye fixations during a naturalistic search for lodging, with implications for hotel marketing strategies. 2 - The Connection Between Restaurant Performance and Customer-facing Technology in Restaurants Alex Susskind, Cornell University, 350 Statler Hall, School of Hotel Adminstration, Ithaca, NY, 14853, United States of America, ams76@cornell.edu In this study, the relationship between customer-facing technology, customer satisfaction and restaurant performance are examined. The findings suggest that the use of customer-facing technology in a full-service restaurant experience is positively connected to customers’ satisfaction with their service experience in the restaurant, higher average spending in the restaurant and a higher tip percentage paid to the servers. 3 - Does Customer-facing Technology Reduce Service Time in Restaurants? Ben Curry, Data Scientist, Ela Carte, Ela Carte Headquarters, San Francisco, CA, United States of America, bcurry@elacarte.com Looking at how table turn time and service labor usage was affected by customers’ use of customer facing technology in restaurants, I found that customer-facing technology notably reduced table turn time when customers ordered their meals through the table top device; that figure increased more for customers who ordered their meals and settled their bills using the table-top devices. TB36 36-Room 413, Marriott Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Logistics Sponsor: Public Sector OR Sponsored Session Chair: Chris Zobel, Professor, Virginia Tech, Business Info. Technology, 880 W. Campus Dr., Suite 1007, Blacksburg, VA, 24061-0235, United States of America, czobel@vt.edu Co-Chair: Andrew Arnette, Assistant Professor Of Decision Sciences And Governor Geringer Scholar, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave, Laramie, WY, 82071, United States of America, aarnette@uwyo.edu 1 - Management of Blood Supplies During Humanitarian Crises Cigdem Gonul Kochan, Ohio Northern University, 525 South This study presents a combined problem of allocating and routing the available blood supplies at the central blood bank to a given set of hospitals with uncertain demand. We develop two multi-product newsvendor (MPNP) –traveling salesman (TSP) models. We examine and compare the results of both models. 2 - A Markov Decision Process Model for Equitable Distribution of Supplies under Uncertainty Lauren Davis, North Carolina A&T State University, 1601 E. Market St., Greensboro, NC, United States of America, lbdavis@ncat.edu, Sefakor Fianu Food banks are one of many non-profit organizations assisting in the fight against hunger. Most of the food distributed by the food bank comes from donations which are received from various sources in uncertain quantities at random points in time. We present a finite horizon decision-making model that determines the optimal allocation of supplies to demand locations (charitable agencies) given stochastic supply. Main Street, Ada, OH, 45810, United States of America, c-kochan@onu.edu, Shailesh Kulkarni, David R. Nowicki

3 - Exploring a Community’s Perception of Resilience and its Effect on Public Policy Roberta Russell, Professor, Virginia Tech, 1007 Pamplin Hall, 0235, Blacksburg, VA, 24060, United States of America, rrussell@vt.edu, Yuhong Li, Michelle Seref Resilience has been used in many disciplines to describe the ability of an entity to withstand the effects of a disaster, to bounce back from a disaster, or to change and adapt to a new reality post-disaster. This research uses text mining to explore the use of resilience and related terms in newspaper and other media to describe disasters and subsequent recovery efforts. Particular views of resilience are correlated with community actions related to building resilience for the next disaster. 4 - Improving Resource Pre-positioning to Support Disaster Relief Operations Andrew Arnette, Assistant Professor Of Decision Sciences and Governor Geringer Scholar, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave, Laramie, WY, 82071, United States of America, aarnette@uwyo.edu, Chris Zobel This research seeks to address a need for improving asset location modeling for opening overnight shelters in response to natural disasters. Such pre-positioning is crucial for organizations that provide immediate relief to impacted populations, and we discuss a mathematical programming approach that improves on previous attempts to determine more optimal placements for a combination of resources. TB37 37-Room 414, Marriott Health Care Modeling and Optimization X Contributed Session Chair: Songinan Zhao, Student, Kansas State University, 1600 Hillcrest Dr., Apt 4, Manhattan, KS, 66502, United States of America, songnian@ksu.edu 1 - Use of Simulation-optimization Technique in Operating Room Scheduling Musa Demirtas, Research And Teaching Assistant, Western New England University, 1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield, MA, 01119, United States of America, demirtasmusa@gmail.com, Mohammad Dehghani, Thomas K. Keyser In hospitals, operating Rooms (ORs) are the most important and costly departments, and generate a big portion of revenues. This study focuses on maximization of ORs utilization and minimization of inpatients’ length of stay to decrease costs and increase patients’ satisfaction. Since the arrival of emergency patients may disrupt the schedule, we developed a reactive simulation- optimization model to schedules that optimally allocate limited resources to multiple ORs. 2 - Optimal Delivery and Pickup Planning for Patients with Chronic Diseases using Drones Seon Jin Kim, University of Houston, Dept. of Industrial Engineering, Houston, TX, 77204, United States of America, sonjin64@gmail.com, Gino Lim, Jaeyoung Cho Patients with chronic diseases are required to visit clinics for a routine health exam. The cost of chronic diseases has been increasing every year, which became a burden to patients, government, and health insurance companies. We present a robust optimization model to reduce healthcare costs and improve quality of healthcare service using drones. The model finds optimal routes of drones to deliver medicine and pickup necessary samples to analyze patients’ health. 3 - Application of Theory of Constraints in Blood Banking Harshal Lowalekar, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management Indore, Rau-Pithampur Road, Indore, MP, 453556, India, harshal@iimidr.ac.in We discuss the application of the Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes (TOCTP) methodology in managing inventory at blood banks. Using the Thinking Processes approach the root-cause behind the common inventory problems at blood banks like high shortage and wastage of blood products, high operating expenses and low revenue levels is identified. A TOC based solution is then proposed to address the root-cause. 4 - Study of Optimal Control Strategies for Visceral Leishmaniasis Songinan Zhao, Student, Kansas State University, 1600 Hillcrest Dr., Apt. 4, Manhattan, KS, 66502, United States of America, songnian@ksu.edu, Chih-hang Wu, Yan Kuang, David Ben-arieh Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a vector-borne disease which is transmitted by sandflies and it is the second-largest parasitic killer after Marilia. Mathematical models were proposed to assist in the control of spread of VL; however, quantitative conditions for the control of VL transmission are not studied. This paper develops a general mathematical model for VL disease transmission system, performs bifurcation analysis to discuss control conditions, and calculates optimal control strategies.

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