1,720,996 research outputs found
A spatial analysis to evaluate the impact of deregulation policies in the pharmacy sector: Evidence from the case of Navarre
No full textCommunity pharmacies represent unusual enterprises as their main function is intrinsically related to the provision of healthcare services. Hence, market competition in this sector needs to be regulated, in order to ensure equitable accessibility, efficiency and quality of services. However, recently a general deregulation trend may be observed in Europe. In this paper, we focus on location restrictions, i.e. on demographic and geographic constraints to open new pharmacies, and we evaluate the impact of their relaxation. In particular, we analyze the case of the city of Pamplona (ES), where a striking increase in the number of pharmacies occurred, after the introduction of a new regulatory system in 2000. We evaluate, thanks to an in-depth spatial analysis, the evolution of the system to date and the effects produced on the consumers, in terms of accessibility, and on the competitors, in terms of market shares distribution. By comparing the obtained results with the ones related to the case of a second Spanish city, characterized by more strict restrictions, it emerges that the deregulation risks to produce a limited improvement in terms of accessibility and to exacerbate differences among consumers. Moreover, an increasing number of competitors does not necessarily imply a more equitable distribution of market shares, thus putting at risk the desired effects in terms of cost reduction and service quality improvement
Reorganizing postal collection operations in urban areas as a result of declining mail volumes–A case study in Bologna
No full textThe impact of technological developments on consumer habits and behavior is endangering the classical model of postal services. The resulting fall in postal volumes generated by the substitution of traditional letter posts by electronic forms of communication has rendered the collection of postal items highly inefficient. In this context, our work deals with a real problem concerning the reorganization of the collection system of the Italian postal service provider, based on the reduction of the number of postboxes currently located in an urban area. To tackle the problem, we propose a practical solution methodology, based on a mathematical programming model which identifies the postboxes to be closed, and we evaluate the impact of such a reorganization on management costs, in terms of postmen to be dedicated to the daily collection operations. Considering the crucial role of postboxes as main access points of users to the postal network, equity is also taken into account. Several computational experiments are conducted based on real data from the city of Bologna, in northern Italy. The resulting scenarios show the capability of the model to support the decision making process towards the redesigning of the postal collection system
A MILP Formulation for the Reorganization of the Blood Supply Chain in Italian Regions
No full textBlood is a vital resource for human being since its unavailability may cause deaths and complications for patients. For this reason, in the last 20 years great interest has been addressed worldwide to the blood supply chain management, in terms of efficient and effective policy making and system design.
In answer to this raising need, the Italian Healthcare Ministry issued a decree aimed at improving the blood supply chain at regional level in terms of costs, accessibility and shortage, providing also several indications and restrictions to be accounted for. In this context, this chapter presents a mixed-integer linear programming formulation to determine the optimal location and the number of blood facilities at regional scale, with the aim of minimizing system costs meanwhile guaranteeing good standard service level requirements.
The proposed formulation tackles the problem in a multi-echelon and multi-objective perspective. It has been solved by Gurobi 9.0.1 solver and validated on real like test cases related to Campania and Puglia regions. Finally, the impacts of the different parameters involved in the formulation are analyzed in order to provide managerial insights to decision makers and healthcare stakeholders
Strategies to reduce postal network access points: from demographic to spatial distribution criteria
No full textThe wide diffusion of digital technologies has produced a sharp decline in letter mail volumes. In this context, postboxes are mostly underutilized, and postal operators are pushing toward a re-discussion of their distribution criteria with the National Regulation Authorities, to reduce their number. In this work, we propose two alternative strategies to support this process, and we evaluate the impact produced by their implementation on the accessibility of users to the postal network. Results obtained from an extensive application to the Italian case prove the capability of the proposed approach to provide insightful managerial and policy implications
A unifying framework and a mathematical model for the Slab Stack Shuffling Problem
No full textThe Slab Stack Shuffling Problem (SSSP) consists of retrieving slabs, stored in stacks in a warehouse, to efficiently satisfy a processing order. The problem is relevant in the steel industry as the slab yard serves as a storage buffer between the continuous casting stage and the rolling mill. Notably, the SSSP also arises in cutting/assembly centres within the shipbuilding supply chain, where already rolled slabs must undergo further production stages. The different slabs managed in these facilities confer the problem novel practical features, such as the existence of slabs' typologies and deadlines, i.e., a maximum time beyond which their quality certifications expire and are no longer usable. In such a context, the goals of the present paper are twofold: (i) providing a comprehensive taxonomy of the main aspects involved in the problem; (ii) proposing an original mathematical formulation for the SSSP. Specifically, the model is cast as a bi-objective multi-period program, seeking to minimise the number of shuffles and expired slabs. Computational tests on randomly generated instances prove the relevance of the trade-off between the above-mentioned objectives and the impact of the yard's configuration on the retrieval process, suggesting the most suitable storage strategy to adopt under different operational settings
A reduced Composite Indicator for Digital Divide measurement at the regional level: An application to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI)
No full textThe present paper investigates the problem of defining an easy-to-implement tool to evaluate the Digital Divide (DD) among and, above all, within countries to grasp sub-national divides and appropriately inform policy-makers guiding digital transformation processes. With this aim in mind, the study focuses on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), the most recent and currently used CI for DD measurement across European states. A methodology employing correlation and principal component analysis is adopted to assess redundancies in the DESI and obtain a reduced version of the index with a significantly lower number of indicators. Experiments performed using the 2020 data related to the 29 EU countries demonstrate that the reduced DESI produces very similar results to the original one, thus proving the existence of redundancies in its current structure. An extensive analysis of the Italian case shows how the reduced version of the index can be more easily applied at the sub-national level, thus helping to detect DD between regions and offering meaningful policy-making support. In particular, a framework to analyze the obtained results is proposed to support the identification of adequate interventions at the national level or targeted actions to mitigate digital disparities in lagging regions
Approximation schemes for districting problems with probabilistic constraints
No full textIn this work a districting problem with stochastic demand is investigated. Chance-constraints are used to model the balancing requirements. Explicit contiguity constraints are also considered. After motivating the problem and discussing several modeling aspects, an approximate deterministic counterpart is proposed which is the core of new solution algorithms devised. The latter are based upon a location-allocation scheme, whose first step consists of considering either a problem with a sample of scenarios or a sample of single-scenario problems. This leads to two variants of a new heuristic. The second version calls for the use of a so-called attractiveness function as a means to find a good trade-off between the (approximate) solutions obtained for the single-scenario problems. Different definitions of such functions are discussed. Extensive computational tests were performed whose results are reported
Measuring spatial access to the recovery networks for WEEE: An in-depth analysis of the Italian case
No full textThe regulation of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) industry is of priority importance in the environmental and circular economy agenda of the EU. Within the EU legislation, the Member States must undertake appropriate policies to increase the amount of waste reintroduced in the supply chain. To this end, as the literature suggests, the design of adequate collection infrastructures and geographical proximity to dedicated facilities, named Collection Centers (CCs), are key factors affecting users' willingness to deliver WEEE. In this work, we propose a systematic approach to evaluate the users’ spatial access to WEEE networks. Specifically, we introduce a dashboard of quantitative indicators to assess the presence of sufficient CCs for the take-back service given the demand in a given area (availability) and at measuring the proximity between consumers and CCs (accessibility). We perform an extensive application to the Italian case, which proves the capability of the proposed indicators to: (i) allow comparative analysis among different areas of the country; (ii) shed light on the impact of spatial dimensions on the amount of collected waste; (iii) support decisions concerning the optimal location of new CCs. In this latter regard, we also discuss, formalize and test possible strategies for expanding the network
Improving spatial accessibility to regional health systems through facility capacity management
No full textIn austerity times, the general interest to reduce costs and improve efficiency levels often resulted into local cuts to public expenditure and profound reorganizations of existing service networks, especially in sectors like healthcare. In Italy, a recent reform prescribed the reconfiguration of time-dependent (i.e. emergency) hospital networks with the aim of improving patients’ accessibility conditions. In order to evaluate the impacts determined by this reorganization, we perform a spatial analysis in which we consider the distance from the closest facility as an accessibility measure. Results obtained from the spatial analysis confirm that users effectively benefit from the reorganization process but also that further improvements are possible, especially for the worst served ones. To this end, we also propose solving a mathematical programming model aiming at redistributing the capacities, i.e. the supply of beds, among the hospitals of the network seeking to maximize users’ accessibility. The realized computational experiments show that averagely better and even more equitable accessibility conditions could be obtained by containing the deriving reorganization costs
A Location-Routing Based Solution Approach for Reorganizing Postal Collection Operations in Rural Areas
No full textPostboxes generally represent a cost for a postal service provider since they require to be maintained and daily visited by an operator to collect the letters. On the other hand, for the users, they are the main access points to the postal network and so the reduction of their number could result in a deterioration of the quality of the service for them. This work addresses a real problem involving the reduction of the number of postboxes located in rural areas to reorganize the collection operations of a postal service provider. We formulate this problem as a location-routing problem where the number of postmen employed is minimized guaranteeing the user accessibility. Exact and heuristic solution methods have been developed, tested and compared to existing solution methods on instances based on real data of rural instances showing the effectiveness of the proposed methodologies
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