The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Modeling and analysis of hospital facility layout problem
Author:	Padgaonkar, Amol Shrikrishna
View Online:	njit-etd2004-010 (xi, 72 pages ~ 2.9 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Industrial Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Das, Sanchoy K. (Committee chair) Bladikas, Athanassios K. (Committee member) Abdel-Malek, Layek (Committee member)
Date:	2004-01
Keywords:	Facility layout Hospitals
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The optimal solution to any facility layout problem is an important aspect and a major concem as it involves significant material handling and transportation cost. The objective is to arrange the departments within the predefined facility boundaries in the way that the interaction between the functions is efficient and the overall movement cost is minimized. While facility layout problems have traditionally focused on manufacturing facilities, there has been little work on analyzing layouts for hospitals. The thesis focuses on hospital facility layout problems (HLP) to (i) minimize the movements of patients and (ii) minimize the movements of accompanying resources such as doctors, nurses, equipment and paramedical staff. The thesis consists of two sections. In the first section, a model for the multi-floor layout problem is presented based on the minimization of movement cost. The model has travel frequency or number of trips, trip difficulty rating, baseline travel cost and distance as parameters for determining the movement cost. In the second section, some additional parameters and constraints are imposed on the model and it is simulated using Microsoft Excel. Simulations are also run to study the effect of different proposed strategies on movement cost. These proposed strategies show a reduction in movement cost from the sample layout strategy in section one. A representative example is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed formulation.