Horizontal collaboration in a decentralised system: Indonesian blood supply chain

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impacts of horizontal collaboration among blood transfusion units (BTUs) in the Indonesian blood supply chain to anticipate problems such as uncertainty of supply and demand. The conceptual model developed in this study, as well as its implementation, considers the uncertainty. A discrete event simulation is used to evaluate the horizontal collaboration with three main performance indicators: the rate of blood shortages, the rate of outdated blood bags, and the total profits. Two blood transfusion units (BTUs) in Indonesia are examined as case studies in this research. Based on data from the two case studies in one year, a set of experiments, results, and sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the benefits of horizontal collaboration. The results show that the horizontal collaboration decreases blood shortages, outdated blood bags, and inventory costs and increases the total profits. The total revenues increased, and there was additional income from selling blood bags to partner collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• Blood supply chain
• collaboration
• decentralised system
• Indonesia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Agus Mansur

Agus Mansur is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya, Indonesia. His doctoral study investigates the inventory models in blood supply chain management. He received B.Eng. in Industrial Engineering at the Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) in Indonesia. He obtained his Master of Engineering Science (M.Eng.Sc.) degree in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He also holds a Certified Professional in Master of Project Management (MPM), Master of Quality Management from AAPM (USA), and Certified Risk Professional (CRP) from BNSP. His research interests are healthcare management, supply chain management, performance management, logistic modeling, and risk management. He teaches operations research, decision analysis, supply chain management, and project management.

Iwan Vanany

Iwan Vanany is a Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya, Indonesia. His research interests are in food supply chain management, business process management, and halal operations dan supply chain. He has published in the International Journal of Information System and Supply Chain Management, Meiji Business Journal, Journal of industrial engineering and management, Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal, International Journal Logistics Systems and Management, Journal of Islamic Marketing, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, British Food Journal, Food Control, Journal of Food Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, and Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, He teaches business process reengineering, supply chain management, enterprise resources planning (ERP), logistics system, productions and planning control, transportation, and warehouse management.

Niniet Indah Arvitrida

Niniet Indah Arvitrida is a lecturer in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya, Indonesia. She holds a Ph.D. in Operational Research from Loughborough University, UK. She also has a Master of Engineering in Supply Chain Management and a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering, both obtained with honours (cum laude) in ITS, Indonesia. Niniet is an expert in developing quantitative modelling approaches, primarily in simulation modeling (discrete-event simulation, agent-based modeling, and system dynamics). She actively joins several international associations related to her fields, such as Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the like. Moreover, she is a reviewer in several international journals and conferences such as the International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Simulation, International Journal of Logistics, Operations and Supply Chain Management - An International Journal, Winter Simulation Conference (INFORMS), and many others.