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An application of variable neighbourhood search to hospital call scheduling of infant formula promotion

Author

Listed:
  • H-Y Lin

    (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology)

  • C-J Liao

    (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology)

  • C-T Tseng

    (Chaoyang University of Technology)

Abstract

In the infant formula industry, products must rely on the prescription or recommendation from healthcare physicians (HCPs). Therefore, it is the most important activity in sales promotion to call on the identified HCPs in the prospected hospitals by the territory promotional sales representatives (PSRs). The PSRs have to establish their monthly hospital call schedule according to several constraints. In this paper, we investigate the hospital call scheduling of PSRs, a real-world case provided by an international infant formula company operating in Taiwan. The objective is minimising the total travel time. First, we present a four-phase heuristic to quickly generate a feasible schedule. We then apply a variable neighbourhood search incorporated with memory and revolver schemes to improve the solution quality. Through extensive computational experiments, it is shown that the proposed solution approaches are quite effective in terms of solution quality and computation time.

Suggested Citation

  • H-Y Lin & C-J Liao & C-T Tseng, 2011. "An application of variable neighbourhood search to hospital call scheduling of infant formula promotion," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(6), pages 949-959, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:62:y:2011:i:6:d:10.1057_jors.2010.42
    DOI: 10.1057/jors.2010.42
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Avanthay, Cedric & Hertz, Alain & Zufferey, Nicolas, 2003. "A variable neighborhood search for graph coloring," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(2), pages 379-388, December.
    2. Hansen, Pierre & Mladenovic, Nenad, 2001. "Variable neighborhood search: Principles and applications," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 449-467, May.
    3. G Babin & S Deneault & G Laporte, 2007. "Improvements to the Or-opt heuristic for the symmetric travelling salesman problem," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(3), pages 402-407, March.
    4. Pierre Hansen & Nenad Mladenović & José Moreno Pérez, 2010. "Variable neighbourhood search: methods and applications," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 367-407, March.
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