2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

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INFORMS Nashville – 2016
292
TB87
Broadway A-Omni
Community-Based Operations Research II
Sponsored: Public Sector OR
Sponsored Session
Chair: Michael P. Johnson, Univrsity of Massachusetts, Department of
Public Policy and Public Affairs, Boston, MA, 3, United States,
1 - The Foodbank Compliance Problem: A Multicriteria Vehicle
Routing Approach
Sarah Nurre, University of Arkansas, ,
Kellie Schneider
Over 49 million Americans do not have access to a sufficient quantity of
affordable, nutritious food. To address the issue of food insecurity in our area, our
food bank services many agencies that provide emergency food relief. To maintain
regulatory compliance, each agency receives an audit every 12-18 months. We
formulate the Food Bank Compliance problem as a multicriteria vehicle routing
problem to investigate trade-offs between multiple objectives. We solve the model
using both exact and heuristic approaches and provide solutions that appease
various stakeholders in the community.
2 - How Can Value Elicitation In Adult Basic Education Support
Learners’ Success In Goal-setting Policy?
Alma Biba, University of Florida, Jacksonville, FL, United States,
, Michael P Johnson
For the last two decades, federal legislation and Massachusetts’ state ABE policies
have linked adult learners’ educational outcomes to accountability requirements.
Using a multi-method approach ABE learners’ goal setting was presented as a
decision problem in order to reveal and disentangle the conflicting preferences
fueled by outcome-based accountability requirements. Elicitation of values using
value-focused thinking (VFT) methodology revealed that learner’s self-defined
goals are consistently distinct from program-defined goals, that teachers recognize
this disjunction, and that efforts to reconcile the two could yield significant
improvements in ABE program outcomes.
3 - From Spatial Swot Analysis To Mcda And Choice Experiments:
An Integrated Approach For Historical Heritage Management In A
New World Heritage Site
Valentina Ferretti, London School of Economics and Political
Science, London, United Kingdom,
Elisa Gandino
This study develops a multi-methodology intervention designed and deployed to
support planning and management of a new World Heritage site in Italy. The
proposed framework develops through subsequent phases and experiments an
integrated approach based on mixed Decision and Economic Analysis techniques,
i.e. Spatial SWOT Analysis and Multicriteria Decision Aiding in Phase 1 (problem
identification - knowledge phase), Stakeholders Analysis and Spatial Multicriteria
Decision Aiding in Phase 2 (problem formulation - planning phase), and Choice
Experiments during Phase 3 (problem solving - design).
4 - Mobile Dentistry Network Design: Improving Dental Care Access
For Under-served Populations In Rural Regions
Ronald McGarvey, University of Missouri, IMSE and TSPA,
E3437D Lafferre Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211, United States,
, Andreas Holger Thorsen
We investigate the implications of adding mobile dentistry services to a
community health center (CHC) in southwest Montana. CHCs are not-for-profit
healthcare corporations which provide comprehensive primary care services to
patients in the US, including under-served and uninsured people. Mobile
dentistry involves dentists and dental hygienists traveling with dental equipment
in vans or trailers to serve patients. We model the mobile dentistry network
design problem using a mixed-integer programming model to assess the financial
feasibility of offering a mobile dentistry service in southwest Montana and
measure the potential social impact of mobile dentistry on the region.
TB88
Broadway B-Omni
Service Science Best Student Paper Competition II
Award Session
Chair: Robin Qiu, Penn State University, 30 E. Swedesford Road,
Malvern, PA, 19355, United States,
1 - Appointment Scheduling And The Effects Of Customer
Congestion on Service
Zheng Zhang, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United
States, , Zheng Zhang, Brian Denton,
Xiaolin Xie
This paper addresses an appointment scheduling problem in which the server
responds to congestion of the service system. We characterize the congestion
induced behavior of the server as a function of customer waiting time. Decision
variables are the scheduled arrival times for customers in order to minimize a
weighted cost incurred for customer waiting time, server overtime and server
speedup in response to congestion. We illustrate the importance of congestion
effects using a case study for an outpatient clinic at a large medical center.
2 - Managing Consumer Return Abuse And an Assessment Of
Technology-Enabled Countermeasures
Mustafa Serkan Akturk, Texas A&M University, 4217 TAMU,
Wehner 320 M, College Station, TX, 77843-4217, United States,
, Michael Ketzenberg
This paper examines retail return abuse with respect to both opportunistic and
fraudulent consumer returns and explores two innovative technology-enabled
countermeasures: customer profiling and product tracking. A customer profiling
system identifies opportunistic customers by using their personal identification
and transaction history. In contrast, a product tracking system identifies
fraudulent returns by recording each transaction of a product through the use of
unique identifiers. We investigate the value of making such investments and
evaluate how these countermeasures impact a retailer’s profitability, demand
structure, and policy parameters with respect to price and refund.
3 - Data-Driven Management Of Post-Transplant Medications:
An APOMDP Approach
Alireza Boloori, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ,
United States, , Soroush Saghafian,
Harini Chakkera, Curtiss Cook
Anti-rejection drugs are heavily prescribed after organ transplantations to reduce
the risk of organ rejections. However, this practice has been shown to increase the
risk of diabetes, which makes patients insulin-dependent. To address this conflict
and generate effective medication management strategies, we propose an
ambiguous POMDP framework that accounts for (1) patients’ quality of lives, (2)
inevitable estimation errors in a data-driven system, and (3) physicians’ attitudes
in decision making. We also provide several managerial and medical implications
for policy makers and physicians.
4 - Speedup And Slowdown In Multi-Class Service Systems
With Returns
Nasser Barjesteh, University of Chicago Booth School of Business,
Chicago, IL, United States, ,
Hossein Abouee-Mehrizi
We consider a service system facing several classes of customers in which the
arrival rate and service time depend on the workload, while the chance of return
depends on the service time. We provide conditions under which the system is
stable and characterize the equilibria of the system. We show that the system may
shift between several equilibria. We demonstrate conditions under which an
equilibrium is stable and prove that the stability of an equilibrium may depend on
the time a customer spends outside of the system before returning for rework. We
also observe that the congestion level at which the service rate of one class is
changed affects the impact of adjusting the service rate of another class.
5 - Simulation Optimization For Medical Staff Configuration At
Emergency Department In Hong Kong
Hainan Guo, City University of Hong Kong, KLN, Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, , Siyang Gao,
Kwok-Leung Tsui
This paper seeks to solve the problem of minimizing the medical staff cost
constrained by certain service requirements at ED in HK. In our formulation, the
service requirements are characterized by some stochastic constraints. Due to the
special structure of this problem and ease of computing the objective values, we
proposed an efficient random search approach which iteratively identifies
solutions with better objective values than that of the current best solution.
Experimental studies demonstrate the significantly higher efficiency of our
method. In order to obtain the same solution quality, it is able to reduce the
computational time by 90% compared with the existing methods in the literature.
TB87