Better management of blood supply-chain with GIS-based analytics

This paper presents a novel application of operations research, data mining and geographic information-systems-based analytics to support decision making in blood supply chain management. This, blood reserve availability assessment, tracking, and management system (BRAMS), research project has been funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. (This DoD funded SBIR project is performed by the researchers at Knowledge Based Systems, Inc. (KBSI).) The rapidly increasing demand, criticality of the product, strict storage and handling requirements, and the vastness of the theater of operations, make blood supply-chain management a complex, yet vital problem for the department of defense. In order to address this problem a variety of contemporary analytic techniques are used to analyze inventory and consumption patterns, evaluate supply chain status, monitor performance metrics at different levels of granularity, and detect potential problems and opportunities for improvement. The current implementation of the system is being actively used by 130 mangers at different levels in the supply chain including facilities at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea and Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey.