Integrated procurement and reprocessing planning for reusable medical devices with a limited shelf life.

We present a new model formulation for a multiproduct dynamic order quantity problem with product returns and a reprocessing option. The optimization considers the limited shelf life of sterile medical devices as well as the capacity constraints of reprocessing and sterilization resources. The time-varying demand is known in advance and must be satisfied by purchasing new medical devices or by reprocessing used and expired devices. The objective is to determine a feasible procurement and reprocessing plan that minimizes the incurred costs. The problem is solved in a heuristic manner in two steps. First, we use a Dantzig-Wolfe reformulation of the underlying problem, and a column generation approach is applied to tighten the lower bound. In the next step, the obtained lower bound is transformed into a feasible solution using CPLEX. Our numerical results illustrate the high solution quality of this approach. The comparison with a simulation based on the first-come-first-served principle shows the advantage of integrated planning.

Relocatable modular capacities in risk aware strategic supply network planning under demand uncertainty.

We propose a new model formulation for a three-echelon supply network design problem incorporating the concept of relocatable modular capacities. A robust supply network configuration must be determined based on uncertain demand. Furthermore, by incorporating the conditional value at risk (CVaR), the risk induced by uncertain demand is explicitly considered. The derived supply network configuration should maximize the weighted sum of the expected net present value and the CVaR. The resulting nonlinear model formulation is approximated by a piecewise linearization. Our numerical investigation shows that the derived supply network configuration is robust and stable in the presence of uncertain demand.