Optimizing Routes and Schedules of Occupational Health and Safety Specialists

Abstract

According to occupational health and safety law of 6331, companies employing the certain number of workers or focusing the certain level of hazardous works must employ a full-time occupational health and safety (OHS) professional or be serviced by a part time one for prespecified durations. Many companies prefer to be serviced by part-time specialists since it is more cost-effective. Specialists working for independent joint health and safety units visit companies and service during predefined times daily basis by starting and ending the tours from/to their homes or offices. They spend long times among visits in traffic. Therefore, minimizing travel distances of specialists creates leisure times for rest and service. This problem is very similar to the Vehicle Routing Problem that has already been studied and applied many areas varied from logistic to security for long years. In this study, daily routing and scheduling activities of a specialist based on three scenarios are modelled with the mixed integer linear programming, frequently used to solve VRPs. Optimal routes and schedules for three scenarios are demonstrated and discussed. The main aim of the study is to show decision makers and specialists in the OHS area how to use operations research tools in their daily basis activities.