Twelve surgical cases. Three operating rooms.
Using 12 published surgical cases from Queensland, we tested an earlier start for the longest operations across three assumed rooms.
The longest case starts at 12:57.
The longest case starts at 08:00.
Blue: the longest case. Gray: the other cases. Changeover time is included.
The same work finishes 2 hours 30 minutes earlier
A simple longest-first rule achieves the same 16:00 finish; further search adds no gain here. This is a planning replay, not a clinical operating list.
Data, assumptions & full results
Data behind this study
Powers et al. · Queensland surgical-duration data ↗Published data from a South East Queensland hospital, 2019. The source authors imputed some missing durations; affected rows are not identified. Case letters are our display labels, not patient identifiers.
Powers, McGree, Grieve, Aseervatham, Ryan & Corry · CC BY 4.0
Assumptions & verification
We selected the first 12 records of the published CSV before solving. Each occupied-room block includes procedure and changeover time. All cases are assumed ready at 08:00, with three equally equipped rooms and dedicated qualified staff. Clinical urgency, surgeon availability, emergencies and recovery beds are not modeled. This is a planning replay, not an actual hospital list or a clinically validated schedule.
Every displayed plan was rescored and independently checked. Three-second search budget; no proof of optimality. The downloads include inputs, assignments and verification records.
Model: Machine Scheduling