Forward and reverse supply chain network design for consumer medical supplies considering biological risk

Abstract

Medical Supply chain network design is one of the crucial planning problems that if solved efficiently and effectively, can alleviate the dangers arising from the accumulation of wastes. Furthermore, the harmful effects of medical waste, with their infectious nature in the environment, have increased justifies the significance of this research. In this article, forward and reverse supply chain network design for consumer medical products is considered taking into account the biological risks. The proposed model has two objectives: first, maximizing the profit obtained from subtracting the costs from the revenues of the supply chain. Revenues are gained from selling medical supplies to hospitals and medical wastes to recycling centers, as well as getting the permission to use sterilize services from clinics lacking a sterilization center. The costs include activation cost of inventory, sterilization and collection centers, transportation cost, purchasing cost of medical supplies, municipality cost for destruction of medical waste, etc. The second objective is to reduce biological risks. The primary source of infectious medical supplies is from disposable supplies and equipment. Thus, the second objective function is to minimize the distance and travel time between the clinic and the sterilization center. The proposed model is implemented in hospitals in Tehran's 4th municipal district using the Bounded De Novo Programming approach which initially attempts to redesign rare sources of the problem. The issue has two types of resource and policy constraints. The policy constraints of the problem cannot be changed, which is why the bounded De Novo Programming approach is used to solve the problem. Redesigning the capacity of the sterilization center leads to the decrease of biological risks, and in addition to can causes to increasing profitability. Also, by raising the productivity of medical waste in the recycling process, the distribution center can receive more profits.