Abstract
An application of Artificial Intelligence is computational simulation which reproduces the behavior of a system, such as an organization. Simulations provide benefits into business process management, also by combining scenarios and what-if analysis. This study explores the adoption of agent-based modeling technique, in addition to traditional discrete event simulations. The focus is on a real case study of an hospital emergency department. Following the construction of a new hospital, managers are interested in simulating the actual flows in the new configuration before the moving. In our model, patients and operators are agents, acting due to simple behavioral rules in the environment. The different activities are placed on the map of the department, to provide immediate understanding of bottlenecks and queues. While first results were validated from managers, next steps include the comparison of resulting flows between the new and the old department. Logistics analysis includes the time for moving agents between different wards.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Dr. Adriana Boccuzzi and Dr. Franco Ripa of the San Luigi Gonzaga hospital of Orbassano (Italy). The City of Health and Science of Turin has funded the business processes analysis working group, including the research work of Emilio Sulis.
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Sulis, E., Di Leva, A. (2018). An Agent-Based Model of a Business Process: The Use Case of a Hospital Emergency Department. In: Teniente, E., Weidlich, M. (eds) Business Process Management Workshops. BPM 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 308. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74030-0_8
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