Managing scarce resources- Improvement of blood supply chain management by simulation

The aims of logistics projects are often to reduce costs or to effectuate logistics processes. If we do not want to implement "trial-and-error" practice, which is often costly and in some cases impossible, one way to proceed is to conduct simulation experiments. In this project which concerns logistical management of a scarce resource, namely human blood, simulation is the tool that is going to be used in order to find out whether logistical management can be improved. In this project the Central Finland Central Hospital and the Finnish Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (FRC BTS) are in focus. This means that the processes and systems to be modelled and simulated is the logistics system existing between these two supply chain participants. However, as this project has been concluded, we intend to extend the modelling into including all Finnish hospitals. Thus the intention is to start by integrating two supply chain participants but in a later phase all main supply chain participants will be included.