Solution approaches to the blood distribution problem of the Turkish Red Crescent

Abstract

This paper considers the blood distribution problem that includes irradiation centres, urgent demands, and product availability in Turkey, Central Anatolian Regional Blood Center of the Turkish Red Crescent. To address the problem, we develop a mixed integer linear program with two objectives: maximising the demand satisfaction and minimising total time travelled by the vehicles. We propose two decomposition-based heuristic solution approaches. The results of our experiments have revealed that the model cannot solve even small sized instances in reasonable times; however, the heuristic solution approaches are appropriate for solving complex real life problems. [Received: 5 May 2017; Revised: 21 December 2017; Accepted: 9 February 2018]