AN EXACT SOLUTION FOR JOINT OPTIMIZATION OF INVENTORY AND ROUTING DECISIONS IN BLOOD SUPPLY CHAINS: A CASE STUDY

In this paper, blood inventory-routing problem (Blood-IRP) is for the first time introduced and its unique characteristics that distinguish the problem from traditional IRPs are discussed. The perishability of blood products, the need to use older-first policy, the necessity of establishing order-up-to level policy for safe)) issues, the need for minimizing blood wastages, and the existence of new concepts such as assigned and unassigned inventories, crossmatch release period and crossmatch to transfusion ratio are among the especial aspects of Blood-IRP. Afterward, a strong mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for solving the Blood-IRP is proposed. Moreover, a novel iterative Branch-and-Cut (B&C) is developed to solve a real case study with 8 customers, 3 vehicles, 3 periods and a product shelf life of 2 periods to optimality. Furthermore, the shortcomings of traditional IRP models with regard to blood logistics are discussed The blood product considered in this paper is platelet; the highest perishable blood product. The obtained results emphasize the need for conducting this study. Finally, a conclusion is provided and future research directions are discussed.