An entire emergency department of a general hospital is simulated to examine patient flows. First, times needed for both outpatients and patients arriving via ambulance to be processed in the emergency department are examined. A special-purpose data-generator is designed and developed to create experimental data for executing a simulation. It is found that the patients spend the longer part of their time waiting, depending on the number of patients to be processed. In addition, it is found that the waiting time for available emergency-treatment beds, doctors, drips, and stretchers accounts for the major part of all the waiting time in the emergency department. A stepwise procedure of operations planning is proposed to minimize the patient waiting times, and numerical examples are shown to illustrate the procedure.

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Functional analysis for operating emergency department of a general hospital

An entire airport terminal building is simulated to examine passenger flows, especially international departures. First, times needed for passengers to be processed in the terminal building are examined. It is found that the waiting time for check-in accounts for more than 80 percent of the total waiting time of passengers spent in the airport. A special-purpose data-generator is designed and developed to create experimental data for executing a simulation. It is found that the possible number of passengers missing their flights could be drastically reduced by adding supporting staff to and by making use of first- and business-class check-in counters for processing economy- and group-class passengers.

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Simulation analysis of international-departure passenger flows in an airport terminal

Many companies utilize a number of complex product distribution networks to transport various types of goods. Most of their distribution networks consist of transporting goods from their suppliers to their distribution centers (DCs). In the process of transporting goods from suppliers to DCs, cross docking facilities are utilized to consolidate loads in order to minimize costs. A simulation model of a generic cross-docking facility (CF) was developed to examine the operational risks associated with individual CFs within a company's distribution network under a dynamic environment. The model was tested and validated on a large cross-docking facility. In addition, it was used to examine the effect of increasing demand through the cross-docking facility. The model is generic and can easily be expanded to model other cross-docking facilities.

/pdf/modeling-and-analysis-of-a-generic-cross-docking-facility-4yk2q00nwo.pdf

Modeling and analysis of a generic cross-docking facility

An entire airport terminal building is simulated to examine passenger flows, especially international departures. First, times needed for passengers to be processed in the terminal building are examined. It is found that the waiting time for check-in accounts for more than 80 percent of the total waiting time of passengers spent in the airport. A special-purpose data-generator is designed and developed to create experimental data for executing a simulation. It is found that the possible number of passengers missing their flights could be drastically reduced by adding supporting staff to and by making use of first-and business-class check-in counters for processing economy-and group-class passengers.

Modeling people flow: simulation analysis of international-departure passenger flows in an airport terminal

This study focuses on the personnel planning of materials handling at a real cross-docking center under a retail distribution environment. Materials handling at a cross-docking center is complicated and labour intensive. Managers are usually under enormous pressure to optimize personnel planning to deal with an increasing variety of items handled by different processes. In this study, a flexible and stepwise procedure of personnel planning is proposed to minimize the total personnel expenses at a cross-docking center, especially taking merchandise mixing and operator skills into consideration. The procedure includes adopting simulation together with integer programming. In addition, the procedure is applied to an actual cross-docking center in order to confirm its effectiveness. Furthermore, the proposed method is found to be both practical and powerful to assist logistics managers in their personnel planning efforts.

/pdf/simulation-based-personnel-planning-for-materials-handling-1hj4995ffy.pdf

Simulation-based personnel planning for materials handling at a cross-docking center under retail distribution environment

The distribution warehouse is located between manufacturers and customers Storage facilities are designed around four primary functions: holding, consolidation, break-bulk, and mixing In addition, materials handling within a storage-handling system reduces to three primary activities: loading and unloading, movement to and from storage, and order filling Generally, it is more difficult to build a simulation model for a non-automated warehouse than for AS/RS, because materials handling is much more complicated In this study, a procedure to build simulation models for move-store activities of complicated and non-automated distribution warehouses is proposed The simulation model here is designed to execute together with the program for generating parameters of materials handling Then, simulation analysis is performed, using a simulation model built by the proposed procedure

Kumiko Ito

Papers

Simulation of distribution systems: simulation and analysis of non-automated distribution warehouses