Healthcare Staff Scheduling ─ Emerging Fuzzy Optimization Approaches

This book focuses on healthcare staff scheduling and the application of modern fuzzy heuristic optimization approaches. Healthcare operations, in both hospital and home healthcare settings, are inundated with complex fuzzy features that impose difficulties in the construction of work schedules. This book will open up new and improved methods for solving staff scheduling problems with multiple conflicting objectives that are difficult to evaluate quantitatively due to the presence of imprecise human choices and preferences that have to be modeled.

Michael Mutingi is a lecturer in industrial engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of Botswana. He has professional experience as a research associate at the National University of Singapore and as a lecturer in industrial engineering at the National University of Science & Technology, Zimbabwe. He is completing his PhD in engineering management at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, majoring in healthcare operations management. Mutingi obtained his MEng and BEng in industrial engineering from the National University of Science & Technology, Zimbabwe. He researches healthcare operations management, supply chain management, manufacturing systems, biologically inspired metaheuristic optimization, and operations research applications. Michael Mutingi is a member of the Southern African Institution of Industrial Engineers and the System Dynamics Society. He has published in international journals, such asComputers & Industrial Engineering, Production Planning & Control, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, International Journal of Production Research, andMaintenance & Reliability.

Charles Mbohwa is a professor of operations management at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Previously he was a senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Zimbabwe and a mechanical engineer at the National Railways of Zimbabwe. He has a doctor of engineering from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology, an MSc in operations management and manufacturing systems from the University of Nottingham, UK, and a BSc with honors in mechanical engineering from the University of Zimbabwe. He has been a British Council Scholar, a Japan Foundation Fellow, a Heiwa Nakajima Fellow, a Kubota Foundation Fellow, and a Fulbright Fellow. His research interests are in operations management, engineering management, supply chain management, manufacturing systems, energy systems, and sustainability assessment. He has published one book, several book chapters, and more than 120 academic papers.