Visual Logic and Code
Most of the construction of the system was done in visual logic, which is Simul8's coding system. At the beginning of a trial, each hospital was distributed a full inventory with life-times based on a triangle distribution, in order to simulate a real hospital where the products have been there for a while. This point is called the initial batch-out.
Then, the simulation proceeded. Patients arrived due to an exponential distribution. When the patient arrived, a product was taken out of the queue and "used". An order was made and a new product was sent to the queue, after a travel time occurred. Each week, a test was run on each of the inventories. In the no-transfer base case, the only result was products that had expired being moved to an expiration queue and a new product being ordered. In the simulations with exchange, the test also found products with life-times lower than the transfer window threshold and exchanged those products with products from the highest volume hospital.
Then, the simulation proceeded. Patients arrived due to an exponential distribution. When the patient arrived, a product was taken out of the queue and "used". An order was made and a new product was sent to the queue, after a travel time occurred. Each week, a test was run on each of the inventories. In the no-transfer base case, the only result was products that had expired being moved to an expiration queue and a new product being ordered. In the simulations with exchange, the test also found products with life-times lower than the transfer window threshold and exchanged those products with products from the highest volume hospital.