Development of a Vaccines and Pharmaceutical Distribution Model Combining Seasonal Demand Management under Emergency

Human generate high crisis consciousness about the epidemic or seasonal disease due to the advance of medical technology. As an old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Vaccines play an effective role for preventing the spread of disease. However, with an error prediction of the vaccine demand comes not only shortage cost but also the consumption of medical resources and the rising demand of medicine. According to the newsboy model, good demand management and inventory management require the estimation of inventory and stock out cost as well as the flexibility to fulfill a stochastic demand pattern. Therefore, forecasting the virus type with its outbreak period and demand are significant in making the vaccine more effective in prevention. Moreover, taking possible future scenarios and plan the supply of medicine simultaneously into consideration is of equal importance. In this project, as stated above, we design a demand distribution management method which responds to seasonal variations, and furthermore, creates a model that can be applied in similar situation. The model consists of two parts: First, we develop a demand management method which responds to seasonality by considering product production cycle, inventory and out of stock cost, the prediction of product types, and its demand during the outbreak. Second, we design the medicine procurement and deliver model based on the strategic-alliance-planning model built in our previous project MOST 107-2221-E-182-056. By substituting the demand result from first stage into the model, we explore the demand management, procurement and distribution decision under different forecasting and demand distribution model. Finally, providing corporate executives a comprehensive reference for demand planning and distribution designing through sensitivity and management analysis.

Project ID:PB10907-4384
External Project ID:MOST109-2221-E182-034