Abstract
This paper presents a dynamic logistics model for medical resources allocation that can be used to control an epidemic diffusion. It couples a forecasting mechanism, constructed for the demand of a medicine in the course of such epidemic diffusion, and a logistics planning system to satisfy the forecasted demand and minimize the total cost. The forecasting mechanism is a time discretized version of the Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered model that is widely employed in predicting the trajectory of an epidemic diffusion. The logistics planning system is formulated as a mixed 0–1 integer programming problem characterizing the decision making at various levels of hospitals, distribution centers, pharmaceutical plants, and the transportation in between them. The model is built as a closed-loop cycle, comprising forecast phase, planning phase, execution phase, and adjustment phase. The parameters of the forecast mechanism are adjusted in reflection of the real data collected in the execution phase by solving a quadratic programming problem. A numerical example is presented to verify efficiency of the model.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the three anonymous referees for their valuable comments that have helped to improve the quality of the paper. This work has been partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.71301076, 71401075), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20130771) and the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20133219120037).The second author gratefully acknowledges the Zi** Chair Professorship that supported his visit to the Nan**g University of Science and Technology during his sabbatical leave while this work was conducted.
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Liu, M., Zhang, D. A dynamic logistics model for medical resources allocation in an epidemic control with demand forecast updating. J Oper Res Soc 67, 841–852 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2015.105
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2015.105