Designing a robust demand-differentiated platelet supply chain network under disruption and uncertainty

摘要

Managing platelets supply chain network has proved challenging. Besides stochastic demand, the high perishability of platelets and the diversity of their demands make the management more intricate. As a motivation to conduct this paper, we investigate a real-world case study facing a variety of platelet demands to satisfy. Being the first-ever study, we contribute a practical method for the efficient design and planning of a multiple platelet-derived products supply chain network. As the most perishable blood product, platelets need to be maintained fresh. Thus, we suggest a bi-objective model make a tradeoff relationship between the network costs and platelets' freshness. Further, we account for two realistic features that the products are categorized into three main types with respect to their application and lifetime, and hospitals are prioritized based on their specialty and the population of patients they cover. To cope with the uncertainty and objective multiplicity, we develop a mixed approach. The network robustness under uncertainty is controlled by a robust method and the Pareto solutions of the conflicting objectives are obtained via an interactive approach. Further, we take into account real-world scenarios that the network facilities may face disruptions and utilize a robust scenario-based approach to deal with the disruption scenarios. The results demonstrate that although simultaneous demand fluctuation and disruption increase both logistics costs and delivery time, the proposed model is capable of achieving robust solutions that a little increase in the logistic costs obtains a considerable reduction in the level of relative regret. Further, the network will benefit from a favorable saving in the logistic costs only by a little increase in the storage time.