Blood supply chain management: robust optimization, disruption risk, and blood group compatibility (a real-life case)

Abstract

Based on the uncertain conditions such as uncertainty in blood demand and facility disruptions, and also, due to the uncertain nature of blood products such as perishable lifetime, distinct blood groups, and ABO-Rh(D) compatibility and priority rules among these groups, this paper aims to contribute blood supply chains under uncertainty. In this respect, this paper develops a bi-objective two-stage stochastic programming model for managing a red blood cells supply chain that observes above-mentioned issues. This model determines the optimum location-allocation and inventory management decisions and aims to minimize the total cost of the supply chain includes fixed costs, operating costs, inventory holding costs, wastage costs, and transportation costs along with minimizing the substitution levels to provide safer blood transfusion services. To handle the uncertainty of the blood supply chain environment, a robust optimization approach is devised to tackle the uncertainty of parameters, and the TH method is utilized to make the bi-objective model solvable. Then, a real case study of Mashhad city, in Iran, is implemented to demonstrate the model practicality as well as its solution approaches, and finally, the computational results are presented and discussed. Further, the impacts of the different parameters on the results are analyzed which help the decision makers to select the value of the parameters more accurately.