A fuzzy shifting bottleneck procedure for patient scheduling

Patient scheduling in radiation therapy is defined as the job shop problem. The shifting bottleneck procedure is one of the most powerful heuristic job shop scheduling algorithms. In this paper, a fuzzy shifting bottleneck procedure is extended to deal with the patient scheduling problem. Triangular fuzzy numbers are used to model uncertain processing times, release dates and due dates of services. The service with the maximum lateness is selected as the bottleneck to be scheduled and then to be re-optimized. Both the bottleneck selection and the re-optimization are based on solving certain one machine scheduling problem repeatedly. In the case study of patient scheduling in radiation therapy at a polyclinic hospital, the objective of minimizing fuzzy makespan is achieved while the patient scheduling solution is obtained. The results can provide some references for hospital managerial decision-making.