A multiple criteria decision-making model for minimizing platelet shortage and outdating in blood supply chains under demand uncertainty

Abstract

Uncertainty in blood supply and demand has proven to be a massive barrier to developing an efficient blood supply chain system. Recent literature has observed blood units’ profligacy and deficiency of approximately 20% and 14%, respectively, due to a limited donor pool, short shelf life, and emergency demand. Therefore, it is critical to develop inventory models to determine the number of units to order and the time between orders to minimize these criteria. The present study is one of the first to formulate a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model for platelet inventory management along the blood supply chain that minimizes three conflicting measures: total supply chain costs, unit outdated, and unit shortage under demand uncertainty. The developed model is solved using three solution techniques: Preemptive goal programming (PGP), non-preemptive goal programming (NPGP), and weighted objective method (WOM). The results indicate that the desired goal for expected supply chain cost is achieved using the PGP model; however, the unit shortage and outdated exceeded by over 350% for each criterion. In contrast, the target value for outdated units is obtained by WOM and NPGP approaches, with WOM performing slightly better by six units when compared with NPGP. Sensitivity analysis is performed to analyze the impact of order priority and assigned weights on the three performance measures. The decision-makers can choose to implement a suitable inventory policy based on the results obtained from the three models.

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