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Fuzzy Mathematical Modeling Approach for the Nurse Scheduling Problem: A Case Study

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Abstract

The nurse scheduling problem (NSP) has received a great amount of attention in recent years. In the NSP, the goal is to assign the shifts to the nurses in order to satisfy the demands of each day during the planning horizon. In this study, we consider the NSP in the largest hospital in Iran, i.e., Milad. A mathematical programming model is proposed to maximize the nurses’ preferences to work in their favorable shifts as well as to minimize the total surplus nurses to cover the demands of each day. The schedule of the nurses on the last days of the previous planning horizon is considered for assigning the shifts to the nurses on the beginning days of the current planning horizon. Moreover, the leave days requested by the nurses are taken into consideration. Considering the uncertainties in the real-world problems has a great effect on providing the higher quality schedules. In this study, the uncertainty is considered in the nurses’ preferences and the number of surplus nurses. To treat the uncertainties in the research problem, four different types of the fuzzy solution approaches are applied. Then, the fuzzy models are formulated based on the proposed fuzzy solution approaches to provide a more flexible solution for policy makers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, Mahallat Institute of Higher Education, Mahallat, Iran

    Hamed Jafari

  2. Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar, Iran

    Shirin Bateni & Shabnam Bateni

  3. Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran

    Parinaz Daneshvar

  4. Department of Engineering Emerging Technologies, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Hamed Mahdioun

Authors
  1. Hamed Jafari
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  2. Shirin Bateni
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  3. Parinaz Daneshvar
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  4. Shabnam Bateni
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  5. Hamed Mahdioun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hamed Jafari.

Electronic supplementary material

Appendix A. The value of the parameters in the illustrative instance generated

Supplementary data associated with the value of the parameters in the illustrative instance generated can be found in online. (DOC 40 kb)

Appendix B. The generated schedules using the proposed fuzzy approaches for the illustrative instance

Supplementary data associated with the generated schedules using the proposed fuzzy approaches for the illustrative instance can be found in online. (DOC 61 kb)

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Jafari, H., Bateni, S., Daneshvar, P. et al. Fuzzy Mathematical Modeling Approach for the Nurse Scheduling Problem: A Case Study. Int. J. Fuzzy Syst. 18, 320–332 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40815-015-0051-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40815-015-0051-2

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