Supply chain coordination and influenza vaccination

Annual influenza outbreaks incur great expenses in both human and monetary terms, and billions of dollars are being allocated for influenza pandemic preparedness in an attempt to avert even greater potential losses. Vaccination is a primary weapon for fighting influenza outbreaks. The influenza vaccine supply chain has characteristics that resemble the Newsvendor problem, but possesses several characteristics that distinguish it from many other supply chains. Differences include a nonlinear value of sales (caused by the nonlinear health benefits of vaccination that are due to infection dynamics) and vaccine production yield issues. In this thesis we present two models in the interface of operations and supply chain management and public health policy. In the first model, we focus on a supply chain with a government and a manufacturer. We show that production risks, taken currently by the vaccine manufacturer, lead to an insufficient supply of vaccine. Several supply contracts that coordinate buyer (governmental public health service) and supplier (vaccine manufacturer) incentives in many other industrial supply chains can not fully coordinate the influenza vaccine supply chain. We design a variant of the cost sharing contract and show that it provides incentives to both parties so that the supply chain achieves global optimization and hence improves the supply of vaccines. In the second mode, we consider the influenza vaccine supply chain with multiple countries.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Operations Research Center.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Mamani, Hamed

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Simchi-Levi.

• Operations Research Center.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45944

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/45944