Using simulation to improve the blood supply chain

Abstract

This case study is concerned with analysing policies for managing the blood inventory system in a typical UK hospital supplied by a regional blood centre. The objective of the project is to improve procedures and outcomes by modelling the entire supply chain for that hospital, from donor to recipient. The supply chain of blood products is broken down into material flows and information flows. Discrete-event simulation is used to determine ordering policies leading to reductions in shortages and wastage, increased service levels, improved safety procedures and reduced costs, by employing better system coordination. In this paper we describe the model and present results for a representative medium-sized hospital. The model can be used by both the National Blood Service and by hospital managers as a decision support tool to investigate different procedures and policies.

Keywords:

• simulation
• inventory management
• blood service
• health service

Acknowledgements

We thank Crispin Wickenden and Mike Northcott from the NBS for their time, advice and support, without which the project would not have been possible. We also thank several employees of the Southampton NBS Centre for their time and effort during the data collection, particularly Andrew Oliver for the provision of the complete database and Tracey Lofting from Southampton General Hospital for her enlightening comments. We express our gratitude to the members of the Blood Stocks Management Scheme for helping with the validation and potential use of the model.