A mixed integer linear programming approach to schedule the operating room

The problem studied in this paper is to allocate and to sequence the elective operation on operating rooms (ORs). We develop a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model to solve this problem. Decisions in this model include the allocation of operations to material resources and human resources, the starting time of them and the starting time for each surgeon. To show the efficiency of this model, we decide to compare it with a constraints programming (CP) approach. The performance of these models is tested using a benchmark of the literature. The results indicate the efficiency of the MILP model compared with the CP model in terms of computational time.