title: ACO for the surgical cases assignment problem.
abstract: This paper addresses the Surgical Case Assignment Problem with an objective of minimizing the total unexploited and operating cost. A two-stage ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is introduced and its performance is evaluated by comparing its solutions to the solutions of Branch and Bound and a global solver. The results show that ACO outperformed the other algorithms and reached better solutions in a faster computational time.
authors.affiliation: Industrial and Mechanical Engineering Department, Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon. charbelrizk@narizk.com
authors.forename: Charbel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rizk
authors.forename: Jean-Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Arnaout
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006801:Humans; D013503:Surgery Department, Hospital