A DSS to manage platelet production supply chain for regional blood centers

This paper presents a prototype decision support system for platelet production and blood mobile scheduling for a regional blood center. Unlike whole blood cells, platelets have a very short shelf life, which requires matching demand and supply closely. This is achieved by an efficient supply chain DSS that is optimized for delivery of platelets from production centers to transfusion centers, typically hospitals. One of the critical elements of the DSS is an embedded non-convex integer optimization model that assists the regional blood center manager to schedule the shuttle transportation of whole blood from collection sites to the regional processing center. The proposed non-convex integer model is transformed to a linear 0–1 problem using a two-step conversion process. The transformed model is successfully solved and the optimal solution is reached for the test data. An application of the integrated DSS using data from a regional blood center is described. The results suggest that the proposed DSS better meets the daily demand by producing a superior production plan and mobile assignment schedule.