An integrated framework to combine blood collection planning and inventory management

Blood supply chain oversees providing an adequate amount of blood units to satisfy the demand from hospitals and transfusion centers. Blood is withdrawn from volunteer donors in many countries, and it must be transfused within a limited time period. After this period, blood cannot be transfused and is wasted. Therefore, picking out the right number of blood units to be collected each day for each blood type is fundamental to reduce wastage and shortage. The number of blood units available in the system results from consumption and the balance between two steps of the blood supply chain: collection planning and inventory management. Therefore, these two steps need to be aligned to avoid blood wastage and shortage. However, in the literature, they are separately addressed, which can create suboptimal solutions with associated shortage and wastage. We too have studied the appointment scheduling for blood collection and the blood inventory management problem, but in separate works, with reference to the Italian and Portuguese blood systems. In this work, we combine both problems in an integrated framework. In particular, we consider a small network in which a collection center serves a central storage unit, which in its turn supplies blood to several local users, e.g., departments of a hospital, emergency services or transfusion centers, each one characterized by a specific demand. The integrated framework allows us to define the optimal amount of collected blood units for each type and day based on the demand to serve, the requirements of the collection center and the availability of donors.