A mixed integer goal programming (MIGP) model for donated blood transportation problem – a preliminary study / Adibah Shuib and Puteh Maisarah Ibrahim

Blood Supply Chain (BSC) concerns with flow of blood products from blood collection by donors to transfusion of blood components to patients. BSC comprises of collection, testing, processing, storage, distribution and transfusion activities, which are normally responsibility of Blood Centre and hospitals. In Malaysia, National Blood Centre (PDN) is responsible to organize blood donation, collection and processing. Current procedure practised by PDN is to have vehicles sending staffs and equipment while one vehicle is assigned to collect donated blood from donation sites and transport the blood to PDN within six hours. As consequence, vehicles shortages are encountered and resources optimization unachieved especially when many blood donation sites involved per day. This paper presents the results of a preliminary study which aims at proposing blood collection optimal routes for blood collecting vehicles that adhere to all pre-determined time windows for blood collection at blood donation sites. A Mixed Integer Goal Programming (MIGP) model based on Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) has been formulated. The MIGP model pursues four goals, namely, to minimize total distance travelled, to minimize total travel time, to minimize total waiting time of vehicles and to minimize number of vehicles (routes). The model wassolved using preemptive goal programming approach and existing heuristics for the VRPTW. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the donated blood can be collected and transported using reduced number of vehicles as proposed by the MIGP model’s optimal compared to the total number of vehicles used by current practice, Thus, the proposed VRPTW based MIGP model has promising significant impact for donated blood transportation in terms of resources optimization and costs savings. The model and approach could be easily extended to solve larger problem involving large number of donation sites with variants of time windows for the sites.