Replenishment prioritization of highly perishable goods : a case study on nuclear medicine

Serving customers in a nuclear medicine supply chain requires frequent and responsive replenishments. Nuclear medicine is a special category of perishable goods that is subject to rapid, but predictable radioactive decay. This study examines the viability of differentiating service through segmenting customers in Tyco Healthcare's (THC's) nuclear medicine supply chain. More specifically, the network of pharmacies that THC serves is divided into two groups-THC-affiliate pharmacies and independent pharmacies-and their demand characteristics are examined. This study rejects the hypothesis that THC should differentiate service by pharmacy affiliation after comparing the demand characteristics of the THC and independent pharmacies. Alternatively, the study tests the hypothesis that product segmentation is a viable option by comparing the demand characteristics of THC's products. This study does not reject the alternative hypothesis and presents proposed policy for coordinated replenishment. To facilitate the comparative analyses, THC's nuclear medicine supply chain is first described. Finally, recommendations on how to improve supply chain performance follow the hypothesis testing.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Authors dc:creator

• Yea, Young-bai Michael
• Zou, Hui

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edgar Blanco.

• Engineering Systems Division.

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/1721.1/55259

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/55259