INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
Jayant Rajgopal, PhD, P.E.
1032 Benedum Hall | 3700 O’Hara Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15261
Professor and Graduate Program Director
P: 412-624-9840 j.rajgopal@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~rajgopal
Summary of Research Interests Prof. Rajgopal’s research interests lie in two broad areas: optimization methods (especially continuous optimization) and the development of analytical and data-driven models to solve problems in supply chains, logistics, and operations. Of late, his primary application focus has been in the area of healthcare delivery. One specific topic he has worked on extensively is vaccine delivery in low and middle income countries. As part of an interdisciplinary team of public health professionals, engineers and computer scientists, he helped develop models to design, analyze and improve how vaccines work their way through the distribution chain from a central delivery location to hundreds of small clinics, many of which are in remote locations. There are many issues to be considered, including cold storage capacity, transportation, personnel, and vaccine wastage. The models
help with evaluating metrics related to these as well as with addressing many “what-if” scenarios, such as changes in resource availability, supply chain structure and vaccine regimens. A related topic is the development of mathematical models to optimize vaccine administration at clinics by minimizing so-called open vial waste, which results when a partially used vial of vaccine must be discarded at the end of a clinic day. Another area he has been working on more recently with personnel from the Pitt medical school is the improvement of processes to collect and safely deliver blood in low and middle income countries. In the past, he has also worked on improving operations in hospitals and clinics, including better utilization of operating room suites, management of hospital inventory items via better storage and inventory control schemes, and improved scheduling procedures at outpatient clinics.
Vaccine Supply Chain Modeling • No. of doses wasted • Open vial loss • Unmet demand • Average time in supply chain
• No. of trips • No. stock-outs • Avg. inventory • Capacity utilization • Inventory loss
Biographical Sketch Jayant Rajgopal is a Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds a PhD in Industrial & Management Engineering from the University of Iowa and has been at Pitt since 1986. His current professional
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
interests are in mathematical modeling & optimization, operations and supply chain analysis, and applications of operations research to healthcare delivery. He has taught, conducted sponsored research, published or consulted in all of these areas. Dr. Rajgopal is a Fellow of IISE, a member of INFORMS, and a licensed professional engineer in the state of Pennsylvania.
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