Stochastic inventory control and distribution of blood products
Résumé
Inventory control in perishable products supply chain is one of the biggest challenges today, this is especially true for medicines and blood products supply chain. Shortage can result in the increase of mortality risk at the hospitals, and on the contrary, high levels of inventory could generate wastage of this scares resource. This paper studies the problem of inventory control and distribution of blood products, considering deterministic and stochastic parameters. This study aims to determine the number of blood units to be processed by the blood center and the number of units of blood products to be ordered by hospitals to minimize the total cost and the shortage and wastage levels in blood supply chain. Two optimization models are formulated: A mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) Model for a known demand and a Stochastic Programming (SP) Model for stochastic demands. These models consider multiple periods, types of blood and life time of blood products. Datasets are generated to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed models for a multi-hospitals single-blood center system. An algorithm is developed to simulate the supply chain and evaluate the mathematical models. It can be concluded the SP Model obtain lower expected rates of shortage and wastage compared to the results of the deterministic model.