A Particle Swarm Algorithm for Solving the Multi-objective Operating Theater Layout Problem

Abstract

The multi-objective Operating Theater Layout (OTL) problem consists of a given facilities of different areas to be placed in different sections of an operating theater department. The OTL problem seeks to find the layout of facilities in a hospital department in compliance with international health care accreditation standards, and to meet the internal constraints on the organizational layout. The main objectives are to minimize the total traveling costs among facilities and to maximize the desirable adjacencies among them. The paper presents a mathematical formulation to determine the optimal OTL. A Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is also proposed to solve approximately this NP-Hard OTL problem. The PSO algorithm employs a constructive heuristic to generate initial feasible solutions to explore by the PSO search concept to find an effective solution in an efficient computation time. The PSO approach is implemented to solve a real-life OTL instance available at Roanne hospital in France. The obtained solution was validated and approved by a senior official responsible of the OTL at the hospital.