Institute for Systems Research

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Subject: search.filters.subject.emergency preparedness

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Predicting the Impact of Placing Pre-event Pharmaceuticals for Anthrax
    (2011-01) Houck, Michelle; Herrmann, Jeffrey
    Finding feasible strategies to distribute antibiotics quickly to the general public in response to an anthrax attack remains a difficult challenge. Among the proposed strategies is the pre-event placement of pharmaceuticals in individual households for use only as directed by public health authorities. These medications (known as “MedKits”) would allow many exposed persons to begin treatment quickly while reducing the number who visit on points of dispensing, the primary distribution strategy. This paper describes a model that estimates the expected number of deaths in an anthrax attack by modeling the logistics of the response and the use of MedKits. The results show that increasing the number of MedKits distributed can reduce the expected number of deaths. When the population has more potential exposures, deploying MedKits is more effective. The MedKits reduce the number of potential exposures who seek prophylaxis, which allows those truly exposed (but without MedKits) to receive medication sooner, which saves lives. Beyond the scenarios considered here, the ability to predict this benefit in other scenarios will be valuable to public health officials who are considering this option.
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    Solving Continuous Replenishment Inventory Routing Problems with Route Duration Bounds
    (2010-01) Herrmann, Jeffrey; Fomundam, Samuel
    In a public health emergency, resupplying points of dispensing (PODs) with the smallest number of vehicles is an important problem in mass dispensing operations. To solve this problem, this paper describes the Continuous Replenishment Inventory Routing Problem (CRIRP) and presents heuristics for finding feasible solutions when the duration of vehicle routes cannot exceed a given bound. This paper describes a special case of the CRIRP that is equivalent to the bin-packing problem. For the general problem, the paper presents an aggregation approach that combines low-demand sites that are close to one another. We discuss the results of computational tests used to assess the quality and computational effort of the heuristics and the aggregation approach.
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    Solving the Inventory Slack Routing Problem for Medication Distribution Planning
    (2009-09) Montjoy, Adam; Brown, Stephanie; Herrmann, Jeffrey W.
    This paper presents a two-stage approach for solving the inventory slack routing routing problem in order to improve medication distribution planning, which is a critical issue in emergency preparedness. Public health officials must plan the logistics for distributing medication to points of dispensing (PODs), which will give medication to the public in case of a bioterrorist attack such as anthrax, while medication is still arriving. Our approach separates the problem into two subproblems: (1) the "routing problem" assigns sites to routes for each vehicle, and (2) the "scheduling problem" determines when the vehicles should start these routes and how much material should be delivered on each trip. This paper formulates the problem, describes the approach, and presents the results of using this approach to construct solutions for a variety of scenarios.
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    Solution Techniques for Continuous Replenishment Inventory Routing Problems
    (2009-07) Fomundam, Samuel; Herrmann, Jeffrey
    The Continuous Replenishment Inventory Routing Problem (CRIRP) is a special type of inventory routing problem (IRP) in which vehicle operations occur around the clock. The problem requires determining how many vehicles are needed to resupply the sites, which sites each vehicle should resupply, and the route that each vehicle should take. The objective is to minimize the number of vehicles. This technical report describes a special case of the CRIRP that is equivalent to the bin-packing problem. For the general problem, this report presents necessary and sufficient conditions for feasibility, a lower bound on the number of vehicles needed, and procedures for finding feasible solutions. These include solution construction heuristics and a genetic algorithm. We discuss the results of computational tests used to test the quality and computational effort of the heuristics. These results show that the route-building heuristic performs better than the other heuristics and the genetic algorithm.
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    Routing and Scheduling for Medication Distribution Plans
    (2008-09-18) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Lu, Sara; Schalliol, Kristen
    This paper presents a two-stage approach for solving the medication distribution problem. The problem addresses a critical issue in emergency preparedness. Public health officials must plan the logistics for distributing medication to points of dispensing (PODs), which will give medication to the public in case of a bioterrorist attack such as anthrax. We consider the problem at the state and local levels. Our approach separates the problem into two subproblems: (1) the “routing problem” assigns PODs to vehicles and creates routes for each vehicle, and (2) the “scheduling problem” determines when the vehicles should start these routes and how much material should be delivered on each trip. This paper presents the results of using this approach to construct solutions for a realistic three-county scenario. The results show that the routing and scheduling decisions greatly affect the quality of the solution.
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    Medication Distribution Problem
    (2008-08-08) Schalliol, Kristen; Herrmann, Jeffrey
    This Medication Distribution Problem was based on emergency preparedness for a potential bioterrorist attack against the public. If the event were to take place, efficient scheduling of truck routes would need to be available. Tour Solver was the software used to generate truck routes under different constraints. The results were then used to find the best routing schedule. Nine truck routes were successfully developed for different scenarios of the problem. These scenarios were then taken and further analyzed for scheduling. More scenarios can and should be generated and assessed in future research towards solving this vehicle routing problem. \
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    Queueing network approximations for mass dispensing and vaccination clinics
    (2008-01-10) Pilehvar, Ali; Herrmann, Jeffrey W.
    To respond to bioterrorism events or to curb outbreaks of contagious diseases, county health departments must set up and operate clinics to dispense medications or vaccines. Planning these clinics in advance of such an event requires determining clinic capacity and estimating the queueing that may occur in such facilities. We construct a queueing network model for mass dispensing and vaccination clinics and estimate the time that residents will spend at each workstation in such facilities. A key contribution is the development of useful approximations for queueing systems that have batch arrival, multiple-server batch processes and self-service stations. We compared the model’s estimates to those from simulation experiments of realistic clinics using data collected from emergency preparedness exercises. Although this research was motivated by this specific application, the model should be applicable to the design and analysis of other similar queueing networks, including manufacturing systems with batch processes.