Demand-pull replenishment model for hospital inventory management: a dynamic buffer-adjustment approach

Li-chih Wang, Chen-yang Cheng, Ya-tsai Tseng and Yi-fang Liu

International Journal of Production Research, 2015, vol. 53, issue 24, 7533-7546

Abstract: Hospital inventory management faces a continually increasing challenge to ensure the availability of medical and surgical supplies at the lowest inventory cost. For overcoming the drawbacks of existing re-order point approaches commonly applied in hospital materials replenishment management, this research presents an innovative demand-pull replenishment approach named the dynamic drum-buffer-rope (DDBR) replenishment model. The DDBR model is implemented using a system dynamics approach in which two essential mechanisms -- the demand-pull characteristics and dynamic buffer-adjustment activities -- are simulated and experimented on. To determine appropriate buffer sizes and replenishment quantities, this research adopted Powell search algorithm to achieve the objective of no stock-out occurrence and low inventory cost. The evaluation of the proposed DDBR model in a real hospital case through a series of comparisons shows that the DDBR model can determine optimal replenishment timing and quantity for total inventory cost with no stock-out occurrence.

Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2015.1102353

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