| Abstract: |
Past research conducted into the management and behaviour of blood inventories relies on distributional assumptions regarding the supply and demand for blood which tend to underestimate the true variation in inventory volumes. This may lead to the underestimation of blood shortages and outdates and/or give a false sense of security to inventory managers. This research will address this issue from a mathematical and modelling perspective and will use the results to examine the impact of alternative blood inventory policies.
It is hypothesised that variation in blood inventories arises from two canonical sources. Firstly, the process of donation, storage, hospital orders, supply and transfusion consists of delays at several points. These delays can cause system oscillation and instability as a result of small changes in demand without the presence of stochastic variation in demand and supply.
The second source of variation is the stochastic nature of demand and supply themselves. When considered together with the first source of volatility the total variation in the system may be amplified.
It is believed that a model incorporating both of these sources of variation will exhibit the degree of volatility seen in the real data. Such a model could then be used to optimise inventory decisions or test the behaviour of the inventory to potential changes in blood storage, donor behaviour and so forth. |