Modeling and simulation of blood collection systems

International audienceThis paper addresses the modeling and simulation of blood collection systems in France for both fixed site and mobile blood collection with walk in whole blood donors and scheduled plasma and platelet donors. Petri net models are first proposed to precisely describe different blood collection processes, donor behaviors, their material/human resource requirements and relevant regulations. Petri net models are then enriched with quantitative modeling of donor arrivals, donor behaviors, activity times and resource capacity. Relevant performance indicators are defined. The resulting simulation models can be straightforwardly implemented with any simulation language. Numerical experiments are performed to show how the simulation models can be used to select, for different walk in donor arrival patterns, appropriate human resource planning and donor appointment strategies

Inventory allocation of perishables:Guidelines

The purpose of this study is to investigate and propose guidelines for how to allocate perishables to improve the balance of freshness and availability in retail stores. Specifically, it is investigated how a single warehouse can make the allocation decision to stores with and without access to remaining shelf life information of the products in the stores. Contrary to complex decisions models, this study aim to develop simple guidelines that can be applied manually or easily integrated into existing decision support systems