Managing growth of a non-profit healthcare supply chain in Haiti

Partners in Health's (PIH) supply chain in Haiti has become strained over the past five years due to the organization's rapid growth. Under the current system, the majority of PIH's products are obtained through an annually placed order. All goods from this order are stored at the central warehouse in Cange, which acts as a hub, until those goods are needed at individual clinics. As annual orders increase in size to support PIH's expanding operations, the limited size of the central warehouse has become a constraint, making a change in current inventory policies necessary. In order to formulate revised inventory policies for PIH's Haiti operations, we developed a spreadsheet model that uses historical consumption data of drugs and medical supplies to forecast demand over the next three years. This demand data is then be used as input to run and compare the existing annual order policy with ordering policies with more frequent reviews. These inventory policies are then evaluated against the central warehouse size constraints to recommend an inventory policy better suited to meet PIH's needs. We find that more frequent orders drastically reduces warehouse space requirements while maintaining high service levels. It is hoped that PIH can continue to use this model to determine future inventory policy needs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Authors dc:creator

• Heberley, Christine L. (Christine Laura)
• Hoover, Matthew F

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jarrod Goentzel.

• 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/1721.1/60835

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/60835