Application of Multiagent Simulation for Maintenance Workflow Management and Resource Allocation in Hospital Buildings

Abstract

Facility managers of hospitals face complex maintenance decisions as they deal with a multitude of maintenance requests in an environment of limited resources and segmented information. Responding to a growing demand for maintenance, on one hand, and lack of proper maintenance management systems, on the other, has led to delays in repair and maintenance of the building components and systems in hospitals. Such delays could cause significant distress to patients and health care personnel. This paper introduces a new method for facility managers to address these challenges. The multimethod simulation approach is developed to integrate segmented information at different levels of maintenance management, with the aim of minimizing maintenance delays in hospital buildings. The developed simulation model consists of two components: a status tracking system (STS) and a resource allocation system (RAS). A discrete event simulation (DES) is used to simulate the maintenance process flow while a multi-agent system (MAS) is used to simulate the process of allocating resources for maintenance activities in hospital buildings. The STS simulation is a DES process that registers, arranges, and distributes maintenance tasks (orders) to the appropriate resources. For the RAS component, a multi-agent resource allocation system (MARAS) is developed to simulate different resource allocation scenarios, accounting for interactions among various agents (decision-makers) in the maintenance process. A case example is presented to demonstrate the essential features of the developed method. The simulation results show that the implementation of MARAS significantly reduces maintenance delays in the case study.