A Multi-Layer blood supply chain configuration and optimization under uncertainty in COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Blood is a rare and perishable substance, and a lack of inventory would cause the loss of lives. However, excessive donation or inappropriate management will cause blood waste and raise costs. In order to properly manage this valuable substance and prevent the shortage, it is necessary to integrate the various considerations into the supply chain and evaluate all the layers simultaneously. Moreover, uncertain conditions might exist in multiple components of a blood supply chain, such as blood donation and demand, as well as under human catastrophes, where the blood demand rises. In this paper, a multi-level blood supply chain network was designed under uncertain conditions, and disruption in COVID-19 was also considered. The proposed model tackled humanitarian factors such as selecting the most suitable locations and minimizing the amount of spoiled blood in the chain to cover all patients under COVID-19. The model was solved by elastic boundary objectives and modified weighted Chebyshev. After evaluating the suggested solution techniques, the TOPSIS algorithm was utilized to select the best approach. Then, the mathematical model and solution approach were validated in a real case study of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, several sensitivity analyses were performed to investigate the reaction of objective functions to changes in model parameters, and relevant insights were derived. The results showed that adding mobile blood facilities would mitigate the delivery time.