喻园管理论坛2020年第40期(总第657期)

演讲主题: Design of Covid-19 Testing Queues

主 讲 人: 崔诗亮，乔治敦大学麦克多诺商学院副教授

主 持 人: 关    旭，生产运作与物流管理系教授

活动时间: 2020年12月29日（周二）10:30-12:00

网络直播平台: 腾讯会议，会议ID：657 636 631

主讲人简介：

崔诗亮是乔治敦大学麦克多诺商学院运营与信息管理系副教授，他的研究方向包括：运营管理、服务管理、零售运营和供应链管理。近年来在其研究领域的顶级期刊上，包括Management Science、Operations Research、Manufacturing & Service Operations Management、Production and Operations Management等，已经发表了多篇文章。

活动简介：

In the event of a virus outbreak such as Covid-19, testing is key. However, long waiting lines at testing facilities often discourage individuals from getting tested. This paper studies how testing facilities should set scheduling and pricing policies to incentivize individuals to test, with the goal to identify the most cases of infection. Our findings are as follows. First, under the FIFO discipline, the common practice of making testing free attracts the most testees, but may not catch the most cases. Charging a testing fee may surprisingly improve case detection. Second, even though people who show symptoms are more likely to carry the virus, prioritizing these individuals over asymptomatic ones (another common practice) may let more cases go undetected than FIFO testing does. Third, we characterize the optimal scheduling and pricing policy. To maximize case detection, there is no need to charge a testing fee; instead, it is optimal to give (partial) priority to asymptomatic testees when testing demand is moderately low, but (partially) prioritize individuals with symptoms when testing demand becomes high.