Abstract
Recently, the supply chain in the pharmaceutical sector, which is important economically to the healthcare industry worldwide, has received special attention owing to different factors involved in the distribution of drugs. Furthermore, it has an important role in global sustainability as organizations base their efficient decisions on the results from performance analysis of economic indicators. Thus, the sustainability of operations decisions must be analyzed to achieve better decision efficiency. This study integrates analytical methods of operational activities evaluation for a drug distribution center in a pharmaceutical logistic organization to analyze the sustainability of its operations. Furthermore, a proposed framework incorporates time variability management (TVM) decisions into a trade-off analysis of triple bottom-line (TBL) sustainability dimensions and operations managers’ decisions. The framework is a real-time data-gathering decision system that evaluates processes using stochastic simulation and process efficacity based on control-chart analysis and analyzes the trade-off performance. Managers’ decisions on time variability is modeled using an Analytical Hierarchy Process. The results of the trade-off analysis of sustainability and TVM indicate that economic dimensions have a higher impact on an organization than social and environmental dimensions. Managers assume that social and environmental impacts are less important to organizations’ performance. Environmental and social dimensions have different impacts on time variability decisions, where managers assume that operations’ time reduction has more impact on the social dimension, while operations’ time increase has a higher environmental impact. Thus, the framework is an effective tool for analyzing the sustainability of operations decisions, which is associated with variability analysis.
Highlights
Chain management is one of the most important cost-driven decisions in organizations [1]
The results of the trade-off analysis of process time variability and TBL sustainability dimensions show that operational managers define their decision-support model with lower impact over social and environmental dimensions in customer orders drugs separation section (CODSS)
The process was validated through a control-chart analysis, identifying the controlled processes for a trade-off analysis
Summary
Chain management is one of the most important cost-driven decisions in organizations [1]. Evaluation of the sustainability of operations in the pharmaceutical supply chain is necessary to support decision-making models and increase organization efficiency. Considering the operational management sensibility of supply chains and the importance of sustainability in organizations, the integration of these areas is necessary to help in the decision-making process [11,12]. To incorporate an operational perspective in sustainability and trade-off analysis, which is still unexplored in academic research, this study proposes a trade-off analysis of sustainability TBL dimensions such as economic, social, and environmental performance that affect operational management decisions. A more realistic approach to decision-support systems in operational management levels is determined when TVM is used to reduce process variability and to evaluate the impact of sustainability in an organization. The conclusion section presents the discussion of sustainability and operational performance analysis of the case study as well as the managerial implications
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