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Renal failure concerns progressive loss of kidney function. Renal Replacement Therapy (RRT) is a costly, long-running process that includes several decision points in different stages. Small changes in the protocol can impact significantly the expenditures and healthcare outcomes. Unfortunately, policy makers have very little support for benchmarking improvement alternatives. The existing models are designed to fit certain applications with preset parameters and design choices which do not match with the requirements of a policy analysis. A generic approach is required to analyze the effects of different design options adjustable to finer scales. To remedy this, this paper describes a novel toolkit for evaluating renal replacement policies, containing a parametrized colored Petri-Net which can be configured for the specifics of local settings. The model is made available for open access to overcome the non-replicability issue of existing models.

In the poultry processing industry demand and supply are still growing in volume and diversity, which requires more processing capacity, flexibility and smarter control. This paper focuses on the fillet batching process. To minimize the giveaway of fixed-weight fillet batching the right choices on layout, buffer sizes, batch sizes and batch allocation policies are of great importance. We develop a simulation model to support such decisions on design and control. The model is used (i) to determine buffer and grader sizes, (ii) to optimize batch allocation in a dedicated layout, (iii) to compare a dedicated to a flexible layout and (iv) to assess the impact of smart allocation policies. In particular we find that significant reductions in giveaway can be achieved by employing so-called index policies in a flexible layout.