Integrated planning for blood platelet production: a robust optimization approach

Perishability of blood products as well as uncertainty in demand amounts complicate the management of blood supply for blood centers. This paper addresses a mixed-integer linear programming model for blood platelets production planning while integrating the processes of blood collection as well as production/testing, inventory control and distribution. Whole blood-derived production methods for blood platelets (i.e., buffy coat and platelet-rich plasma methods) are particularly focused in our research. The problem is tackled with the aim of minimizing the supply chain total cost. To capture inherent uncertainty of input data, a robust programming approach is devised. A set of numerical experiments is carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and the solution technique. Thereto, we employ two criteria: the mean and standard deviation of constraint violations under a number of random realizations to measure the quality of solutions achieved by both the proposed deterministic and robust models. Finally, several sensitivity analyses are accomplished to provide valuable managerial insights. The results imply the domination of robust approach over the deterministic one.