Cases / COVID-19
Paragon Case: Fighting COVID-19 Success Story
Supporting a project in the battle to overcome the largest health crisis in 100 years was a great responsibility made PARAGON proud of reaching its goal of helping to save lives!
COVID-19 Case: Mathematical Intelligence Helping to Save Lives
COVID-19 PANDEMIC. This is certainly an expression that this generation and the next to come will never forget – for the devastating effect it is having around the world.
In just a few days, billions of people were isolated in their homes, the biggest cities on the planet were left empty, nations closed their borders and the global economy suffered a collapse from which it will take a years to recover.
In Brazil, the challenges multiplied with the continental dimensions, the known infrastructure issues and almost 5,600 municipalities waiting for what would resemble war operations in order to face a situation for which they were not prepared.
It was in this scenario that the MINISTRY OF INFRASTRUCTURE and PARAGON established a partnership to bring 240 million masks and other PPE items to hospital beds throughout Brazil.
PARAGON, represented by its technical staff of excellence, is happy to contribute with its data science expertise, so that health professionals could face the pandemic with ideal conditions of safety at work.
Let’s talk about another success story and the preservation of lives!
COVID-19 Case: The Challenges
THE MINISTRY OF INFRASTRUCTURE was the federal agency responsible for the first and strategically crucial operation against the Coronavirus in March 2020:
- Receive almost 1 million tons of PPE from China;
- Define THE logistic STRATEGY to supply emergency health teams across the country.
It was necessary to define, within a few days:
- The ideal amount of PPE for hospital staff;
- The best logistics for THE distribution to health facilities.
The lead time was even more challenging: 60 days. However, the ideal period was shorter: that of preventing lives from being lost as the pandemic grew.
The major steps of this operation would be:
- 1- Load planes during the weeks in China;
- 2- Unload cargo at Guarulhos Airport;
- 3- Separate the PRODUCTS and send them by commercial aircraft to all locations;
- 4- For many municipalities, delivery would still depend on river and road transport.
Major project critical factors
- 1- The instability of the Brazilian air network, reduced to 10% of capacity at that time due to restrictive measures to control the disease;
- 2- The diversity of protocols and policies for wearing PPE between the municipalities since the disease WAS unknown – the teams needed to adapt according to the rate of local contamination;
- 3- As the regions had different rates of contamination and occupation of hospital and ICU beds, there were difficulties in creating a regular delivery schedule.
What were Paragon’s challenges?
THE MINISTRY OF INFRASTRUCTURE invited PARAGON to develop a logistic planning solution that covered all the variables and uncertainties of such a complex project.
One thing was certain: math and data science would be the basis of an algorithmic and scenario-simulation solution for modeling large-volume data in the search of the best – and fastest – alternatives.
The work started with the study of the main available and to be gathered databases.
Brazilian air network
Through a partnership with ANAC, an in-depth study was carried out to update the numbers of the Brazilian air network, considering the drastic reduction in flights across the country.
The government’s assumption was to use the idle capacity of commercial aircrafts, removing the passengers seats to gain space – what was also necessary to calculate the available area in each plane.
Delivery logistics in all municipalities
Over 90% of flights were canceled and many locations were left with no option to receive the products by air. It was necessary to know:
- The locations where no planes would be available;
- Which means of transportATION could be used (road, rail, river);
- Critical local factors (rainy period, road conditions, flood season).
With the above data and the demands by location, it was possible to establish the required travel times for each region and mode (or combination of modes).
National healthcare data
The MINISTRY OF HEALTH made available a census of hospitals and beds that was dynamically updated, considering the demands that the disease’s behavior created at all times.
A survey about the demand for PPE was also carried out for the COVID-19 scenario, based on Chinese and European protocols, which were already in a more advanced stage of fighting the pandemic.
COVID-19 Case: Solutions
With such a rich and complex universe of data, PARAGON generated a model of consumption for products, with different demand scenarios based on conservative, average and aggressive contamination projections.
With the disease contamination rate assigned in each scenario, it was possible to determine the consumption of each PPE item by Intensive Care Unit, hospital, location and distribution center.
A large logistic model was created with a multimodal distribution scenario, with planes, trucks and vessels. In the study, 47 distribution centers were defined, having Guarulhos as a base.
An algorithm was used to match the numbers of disease progression within the country, the expectations of new cases and the consumption of PPE in each hospital to create the supply management for a network of 2,000 hospitals.
COVID-19 Case: Results
Throughout the work, PARAGON used the ARENA software to generate thousands of results for multiple scenarios, combined with other data visualization and process mapping tools.
Among the thousands of results, one was impressive: 200 million masks would be needed for 60 days of consumption. And the ideal replenishment period was 2 days.
In addition to using the simulation software, knowledge sharing was carried out, training employees from different ministries so that they could use the technology after the implementation and the support phase given by PARAGON.
The project with the MINISTRY OF INFRASTRUCTURE was successful, with all transport and distribution logistics planning delivered.
COVID-19 Case: Brazilian Government Testimonial
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