A dynamic logistics model for medical resources allocation in an epidemic control with demand forecast updating

Ming Liu and Ding Zhang
Additional contact information
Ming Liu: Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, P.R. China
Ding Zhang: Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, P.R. China

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2016, vol. 67, issue 6, 841-852

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.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v67/n6/pdf/jors2015105a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v67/n6/full/jors2015105a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:67:y:2016:i:6:p:841-852

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/41274

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Palgrave Macmillan, The OR Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().