New Multi-Objective Approach for the Home Care Service Problem Based on Scheduling Algorithms and Variable Neighborhood Descent

We address a home care service problem, and propose a three-phase metaheuristic based on Variable Neighborhood Decent algorithm and Longest Processing Time algorithm. In the first phase, we resolve the assignment problem using a scheduling algorithm which is the Longest Processing Time algorithm. In the second one, for each nurse, we resolve the routing problem in order to improve the travelled distances using the Variable Neighborhood Decent algorithm. The third phase, is devoted to refine the second phase in terms of maximizing patient's satisfaction regarding services rendered using an efficient heuristic that performs replacements of patients not satisfied between nurses if possible while taking into consideration the distances found in the second phase. The numerical results show the efficiency of the proposed three-phase approach.