Estrategia de resolución computacionalmente eficiente para la recolección y transporte regular de residuos patológicos generados en instituciones de salud

Abstract

The fundamental activities related to logistics in the management of pathological waste encompass the safe operations of collection, transportation, and disposal at sites designated for the treatment of these materials. The effective coordination of the timing of these operations is crucial to prevent the spread of diseases among healthcare personnel, waste management workers, and the general community. In this context, this paper proposes a computationally efficient resolution strategy to address the challenge of regular collection and transportation operations of pathological waste generated in healthcare institutions such as hospitals and sanatoriums. The problem involves the routing of capacitated vehicles with multiple trips, classified as NP-hard in combinatorial optimization, where specific constraints associated with the  handling of hazardous hospital waste must be taken into account. Since conventional methods used to solve Integer Programming problems often fail to find an optimal solution within a reasonable runtime, there is a clear need to implement specific techniques that efficiently address this problem. The paper addresses a real case obtained from the literature, providing details on the proposed resolution methodology.