Digital solutions for planning out complicated logistics?

April 10, 2015 9:57 AM

I work as a project coordinator for a research study. Managing the movement of staff and equipment has turned into a logic puzzle that is increasingly hurting my brain. I am looking to find software that could help me manage who and what goes where.

The study I coordinate involves a staff of people going to different pediatric practices to do developmental testing with children. Doing this testing requires specialized and very expensive kits of equipment, of which we own only four.

We are currently working at six different practices in the suburbs of Boston. I will call these locations a, b, c, d, e, and f. Because of the design of the study, we cannot work at a smaller number of sites. We can store materials as needed at all sites except f. We have five staff members doing the testing. Let’s call them Amy, Sara, Bill, Suzy, and Jane.

Each week, I am tasked with figuring out where to send staff and how to most efficiently get materials where they need to be. Here’s an example of what I might have to work with on a given week:

Last Friday, materials were left at locations A, B, and C. The fourth kit is in Amy’s car from her last appointment.

This week, we have:
Monday appointments at locations A and B
Tuesday appointments at B and D
Wednesday appointments at A, D, and F
Thursday appointments at B and E
Friday appointments at B, C, and E

This is where the logic puzzle begins.

Testing kits are already at sites A and B, ready for use on Monday. Great- no materials need to be transported! Let’s say Sara goes to site A and Bill goes to site B, where everything they need is waiting for them.

At the end of the day on Monday, materials can stay at site B for use on Tuesday. There are currently no supplies being stored at site D, so Sara takes the kit she used at site A with her at the end of the day on Monday.

Sara tests at site D on Tuesday with the equipment she has taken with her on Monday night. She leaves the materials there at the end of the day. Suzy goes to site B and uses the equipment Bill left behind. Suzy takes her kit with her at the end of the day on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Amy goes to site A and tests with the materials she had in her car from the previous week. Jane goes to site D and tests with the materials Sara left behind the previous day. Suzy goes to site E with the materials she took with her the previous day.

And so on.

This planning gets very complicated! I am hoping there is a digital solution- my dream would be a program where I can enter in all the parameters for the week and have it spit out a plan for who goes where with what.

Assume that we cannot obtain more testing kits, staff need to take on roughly equal workloads each week, and we cannot reduce the number of sites we are working at. I am not looking for suggestions about how to solve the made-up example above- just tools to help me generally.

Any suggestions for what type of software might help me solve these weekly brain teasers? If you do not have specific suggestions, any idea what search terms best apply to this type of problem?

posted by bowbeacon to Technology (4 answers total)

While there may be a fancy technical solution, is it possible to assign three employees their own test kits, then have two employees share a test kit and when scheduling those two employees, make sure there is no overlap?
posted by pseudonick at 10:24 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Google Calendar could be useful for visualizing this—it seems similar to the problem of only having a few logins available for conference calls, which was previously addressed at my company by having a schedule everyone could see for when logins were in use or available. Yours would just add a parameter: Each calendar entry would need to list when and where the necessary kit is, and whether the kit needs to be taken to another site or home with the assignee at the end of a given appointment. But yeah, having a calendar would give you clarity, and if everyone in the rotation had a Google Apps account, you could invite them to the calendar events for each day, so they could each look at their own calendar and see their schedule, and you could provide specific instructions and guidance about disposition of kits in the event info.

Though as pseudonick points out, a more ideal solution to this kind of problem—the one that we went to eventually for conference-call logins—was to provide everyone who needs one with their own resource (kit) to use.
posted by limeonaire at 10:56 AM on April 10, 2015

How big are the kits, and do you have any control over the appointments?

Like, on Monday - Wednesday sites A,B,C,D are the only places where appointments take place. On Thursday and Friday appointments take place in E, F, B and C. so the people who were at A and D need to take the kits home and bring them to E and F on Thursday.

I think given all the variables something needs to be more set in order to make it not a giant spaghetti mess.
posted by MadMadam at 12:01 PM on April 10, 2015

Sounds like you need something like Merlin Project.

Quite useful for project tracking, with asset assignments, team tracking, schedule making, GANTT charts, etc.

I've used it a few times for major projects and it was quite helpful. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it's quite easy once you get the gist of the design.
posted by daq at 12:57 PM on April 10, 2015