Previous Research Projects

The Alberta School of Business has analyzed quantitative problems such as facility location, network design, vehicle routing, production planning, and inventory management which have enabled businesses to save money and streamline their business processes. The Centre has coordinated these consulting engagements ensuring that the appropriate resources have been assigned to each.

Previous Projects Include

Calgary Emergency Medical Services - The CEO has partnered with the Calgary EMS in a three-year project to develop station location models that take into account uncertainty in demand and response times. The project builds upon the work done for the City of Edmonton and the City of St. Albert Emergency Response Departments.

Capital Region EMS - The CEO has partnered with the Capital Region to develop station location and deployment models with an eye toward best allocating resources in the region. The project builds on previous work in the Calgary and Capital Health regions.

Infrastructure Planning Models for Emergency Medical Services - The project aimed to develop and apply mathematical models to analyze Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations, to shed light on and influence policies regarding the allocation of EMS funding between regions, strategic station location, scheduling, and system status management.

Alberta Education Teacher Forecasting - The CEO has been engaged by Alberta Education to forecast supply and demand for school teachers in Alberta by region, integrating a teacher lifecycle model with a comprehensive demographic component model.

Edmonton Emergency Medical Services - The CEO partnered with Edmonton EMS to study deployment schemes with an eye toward better covering the city in times of high call volumes.

Regional Telecom Network Design - For three years, the CEO worked with Bell Canada to research ways to improve the design and deployment of the Alberta Supernet. The Supernet is a $300 Million partnership between the Alberta Government and a consortium of companies with the goal of deploying high speed internet into over 400 communities in the province of Alberta.

Emergency Services Delivery - The CEO completed a project for the City of Edmonton evaluating the proposed single-start station for ambulances. This project resulted in some spin-off research as well as helped establish a link between the Centre and the City. Further work in this area is ongoing.

Fire Station Location and Impact Analysis - The CEO developed a model to predict the best location and deployment schedule of fire stations in the City of St. Albert. The study looked at a time horizon spanning the present through 2015 and incorporated a sophisticated model to predict the savings associated with the new station - both in terms of lives saved and property damage reduced.

Diagnostic Imaging Capacity Planning - The CEO analyzed the growth in both capacity and demand for MRI diagnostic services over the past several years and made recommendations as to the most cost effective means to deal with rising demand.

Facility Location for Inland Cement - The CEO was engaged by Inland Cement to help determine the optimal facility placement for a new factory which is to be built in the province, taking into account materials location, transportation, and distribution costs.

Health Services Delivery - The CEO worked with Alberta Health and Wellness Standards and Measures Group on a three year project to analyze the delivery of a number of health services. These included cardiac surgery, prostate cancer treatment, and breast cancer treatment. The centre developed comprehensive forecasting and simulation models to inform capacity planning decisions.

Links to Recent Publications for Past Projects

Budge, S., A. Ingolfsson, E. Erkut. 2008. Optimal ambulance location with random delays and travel times.? Health Care Management Science 11 262-274.

Budge, S., A. Ingolfsson, D. Zerom. 2008. Empirical analysis of ambulance? travel times: the case of Calgary Emergency Medical Services [submitted, last revised November 2008]

Erdo?an, G., E. Erkut, A. Ingolfsson, G. Laporte. 2008. Scheduling ambulance crews for maximum coverage. Journal of the Operational Research Society, forthcoming.

Erkut, E, A. Ingolfsson, S. Budge. 2008. Maximum availability/reliability models for selecting ambulance station and vehicle locations: a critique [submitted, last revised May 2008]

Erkut, E., A. Ingolfsson, G. Erdogan. 2008. Ambulance deployment for maximum survival. Naval Research Logistics 55 42-58.

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