Some Recent Coverage of Our Research in the Media

Next Monday, President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term in office. We can expect a quite dynamic, volatile period. I believe that the research that we have been doing will be extremely relevant from the modeling of tariffs and other policy instruments, such as quotas, and their impacts on a variety of product supply chains, to start.

I am gearing up for media inquiries and believe that, as an educator, it is very important to respond and to inform the public.

In the past few weeks, during the winter break at the University of Massachusetts, I have not only been getting ready for the spring semester and have also been writing papers, but, in addition, I've had several interviews and press releases on our work.

I am very pleased that the professional society of INFORMS issued a press release on our recent paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime,"  published in Transportation Science. This paper I co-authored with my PhD student Dana Hassani and with Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues: Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev. The press release is available here: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/News-Releases/New-Study-Shows-How-Ukraine-War-Impacts-Global-Food-Supply-Chain-Urges-Alternative-Routes-for-Grains. Many thanks to Ashley Smith of INFORMS for this excellent writeup!

Also, UMass Amherst released this press announcement https://www.umass.edu/news/article/anna-nagurney-co-edits-new-book-disaster-management-research on my latest book, Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity, co-edited with colleagues: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Sten Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis and published by Springer Nature in late December. This book is extremely timely and contains 10 refereed chapters plus a preface. 

Recently, I was on Talk The Talk on WHMP to speak with Bill Newman and Bud Eisenberg on Trump, Tariffs and Tradeoffs: https://soundcloud.com/whmp/umass-isenberg-school-prof?in=whmp/sets/on-ice

We had such a lively discussion that they have asked me to come back after the inauguration.

And, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Janet Nguyen of Marketplace for her article, "Do blood donation centers sell your blood?" https://www.marketplace.org/2025/01/10/do-blood-donation-centers-sell-your-blood/ My research group has written many studies on blood supply chains and my article in The Conversation,  published shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic, helped to influence national policy on blood donations; see: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2023/12/honored-to-have-played-part-in.html

In late December I was interviewed for this deeply researched article on sanctions on Russia and chemicals published by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-billionaires-whose-chemical-factories-fuel-russias-war-machine-2024-12-30/

And, not long before that, I was interviewed for this article in The New York Times on how Trump's tariffs would deal a big blow to the auto industry: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/business/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-cars.html

Stay tuned! Interesting times await us!

Honored to Have Played a Part in Influencing National Policy on Blood Supply Chains

For quite a few years, my research group and I have been very engaged in studying and writing about blood supply chains. Blood is a unique product that is life-saving and that cannot be produced but must be donated.

Our work on blood supply chains is part of our broader work on perishable product supply chains and we even wrote a book on the topic that was published a decade ago.

During this festive time of the year with the holiday season, there are also often blood shortages, and, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was greatly concerned about the shortages. One day after the WHO declared the pandemic, I published my article, "How coronavirus is upsetting the blood supply chain," in The Conversation. The article was reprinted on multiple news sites, from Live Science to Salon. 

I am deeply humbled and honored that my article on blood shortages in the COVID-19 pandemic, has influenced national policy not once, but twice. On March 31, 2023, 22 Attorneys General signed a memo to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, and my article was cited first

The full memorandum can be accessed here.

Therein is also a citation to the April 22, 2020 memo from 20 Attorneys General, including Maura Healey, now our Massachusetts Governor, to the Honorable Admiral Brett Giroir, MD, at that time the Assistant Secretary for Health, with my article also as the first citation.

On May 11, 2023, the FDA finalized individual risk assessment guidelines for blood donation eligibility. 

In my discipline of Operations Research, as well as in Economics, we try to "Do Good" to improve social welfare and well-being. The tools that we use include analytical techniques, mathematical models, research studies, and, of course, education of students. However, as I often state in invited conference talks and seminars that I give,  it is also critical to get results out where they can be applied.

That is why I continue to write essays and OpEds that can reach a broader community, as my article on blood shortages has.

 I am very glad that the American Red Cross has now adopted a more inclusive blood donation policy, following the FDA recommendations.

 More blood centers are following the FDA revised guidelines with this article, appearing just a few days ago on the PBS News Hour, noting other blood centers following suit, including one in the Pacific Northwest. The donors, who can now give blood, are grateful and, I am sure, the recipients are as well.

Postscript on My INFORMS Webinar: Blood, Sweat, and PPEs: Rescuing Perishable Product Supply Chains and Impacting Policy Through Analytics

First, I would like to thank the INFORMS Practice Section for the invitation to deliver the inaugural webinar in its Analytics Series, which took place last Friday. The title of my webinar was: "Blood, Sweat, and PPEs: Rescuing Perishable Product Supply Chains and Impacting Policy Through Analytics." 

As noted on the INFORMS Section's webpage: the goal of the webinar series is to bring awareness of the value of applying analytics to real-world problems. The series is organized by Dr. Patricia Neri of Bayer Crop Science and Dr. Carrie Beam of the University of Arkansas.

Also, special thanks to all those who were able to join in. I was thrilled to hear from colleagues in many different countries, who were able to Zoom in.

This blogpost is a postscript on the webinar with links to my presentation and to the full webinar, which is now on youtube, and answers to questions in the Q&A.

That morning began with getting ready for the virtual event.

The logistics of the webinar, which was carried out via Zoom, was handled by Beth West and Mary Leszczynski of INFORMS and it was exciting to have it be open to the public and to have the registration be free. 

We had had multiple practice sessions, since there were slides to be included prior to my presentation about the series as well as slides afterwards, providing a link to this blog and noting that the webinar would also be posted on youtube.

Dr. Neri gave a lovely introduction to my presentation.

In the webinar, I spoke about a variety of perishable product supply chains impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, including: food, PPE, and blood supply chains, and also provided some hope based on convalescent plasma as a treatment, under the reality of competition.  I discussed both earlier relevant research as well as research that we have conducted on supply chain disruptions and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic. And, I also spoke about the impact of analytics during the Covid-19 pandemic on policy, including our work on blood supply chains. I emphasized the importance of the work being done by our Operations Research and Analytics community and also highlighted inspiring younger generations.

The slides of my presentation have now been posted.

The webinar is now also online, thanks to INFORMS. 

Dr. Carrie Beam expertly handled the Q&A.

And, as promised, since we did not get a chance to address all the questions, below I provide a list of questions, followed by my response. For completeness, I also include the questions that were "live."

Question from Don Mustard of Canada: Covid has exposed a global supply chain that was not prepared for a global pandemic. What is the role of government in reinforcing supply chains' structure against disaster, ensuring that disruption is minimized?

My answer: This is an excellent question. I believe that national governments must be involved in disaster mitigation and preparedness and clearly this pandemic is a healthcare disaster. First and foremost, the government must ensure that we are prepared for a worst case scenario, as we are are experiencing now. This is an extreme disaster given the impact and prevalence over space and time (unlike an earthquake, flood, tsunami, etc.).  Many of the supply chains that have been most severely disrupted now are being referred to as "critical infrastructure" and the associated workers are truly essential ones. The government should guarantee that we have adequate stockpiles of  PPEs and medical supplies as well as the capacity to produce them, including vaccines. Investing in food supply chains is also warranted. As I discussed in my presentation, labor in many industries, including food processing, has suffered in the pandemic, resulting in product shortages. Having healthcare for workers will keep everyone safer and make our supply chains more resilient.

Question from Dr. Angelika Leskovskaya of Southern Methodist University: Will it be possible to send slides and probably recording after the webinar?

My answer: The links to the slide and the recording of the webinar are given above. I will check with INFORMS about further broadcasting of the information. Thank you.

Question from Don Mustard of Canada: Perhaps could you discuss your thoughts on the concept that Covid didn't create problems in the supply chain, but rather, just exposed them... and what your confidence that we will learn from this (vs. revert to our historical patterns of behavior).

My answer: Clearly, the pandemic dramatically illustrated to everyone not only the importance of supply chains but also the need for flexibility, agility, and having multiple suppliers, among many other important characteristics. At the same time, the necessity of closing many businesses,  incorporating social distancing measures in production and processing facilities, dealing with employee illnesses and fears of contagion, modifying freight service provision, etc., put many additional stressors on the supply chains. I do believe that Operations Research and Analytics will be utilized and valued more by many organizations as a result of the pandemic because our tools are extremely useful and can identify vulnerabilities (as well as synergies) in supply chain networks. We (firms, organizations, governments) cannot turn our backs on the lessons learned.

Question from Dr. Duncan Klett, Cofounder of Kinaxis: It seems logical that national stockpiles should be filled to close to necessary levels, then supplies would flow through the stockpile so the oldest get sent out to hospitals for immediate use, keeping the stockpile "current."

My answer: Yes, one would think that that would be and should be the case. I believe that some were surprised that masks actually can, in effect, perish over time because their quality deteriorates. This should have been addressed and mitigated way before the pandemic hit us.  

Question from Dr. Amir Masoumi of Manhattan College: Once the volume of blood donations and transfusions across the US are back to "normal", in which direction do you see the blood banking industry moving with respect to balancing the supply and demand for blood products?

My answer: I believe that there will have to be more cooperation, rather than competition among blood service organizations. That was actually one of the themes in a paper co-authored with you and with Dr. Min Yu that I mentioned in my webinar presentation. Also, with the demand for convalescent plasma, obtained through apheresis of blood donations, as I had discussed in my presentation, which is emerging as a possible treatment for Covid-19, there is now some added hope for hospitalized patients battling this disease. There is competition now for the valuable convalescent plasma but, ultimately, there should be system optimization and allocation accordingly.


Question from Rishabh Bhandawat, PhD Candidate at the University of Buffalo: Would centralized inventory with some sort of sharing mechanism have helped with Covid? 

Answer: I think that definitely, yes, especially in the case of the National Stockpile of PPEs and medical supplies. However, as I had mentioned in the webinar, there were not sufficient amounts plus there was deterioration in the quality (hence, perishability) of many items, which exacerbated the shortages. We need a sufficient centralized inventory and management of the critical needs supplies along with a fair distribution to points of demand.

Question from Dr. Robin Lougee of IBM: Does Anna want to talk about the role of blockchain?

Answer: Time did not permit a discussion on blockchain.  However, how blockchain can influence supply chains in the pandemic would be an excellent topic for a future webinar. Thanks.

Question from Dr. Robin Lougee of IBM: What's the NEXT presentation in the series?

Answer: The next webinar will take place on July 10, 2020 and is entitled, "Inventory, Packages, Price Points and People: An Inside Look at leading Technical People." The webinar will consist of panelists who will address: "How do the best geeks in the industry motivate and manage their technical teams. The panelists will be: Dr. Pooja Dewan of Otis Elevator, Dr. Anne Robinson of Kinaxis, Dr. Mallory Freeman of UPS, and Dr. Pallav Chhaochhria of Citi.

Many thanks for all the great questions! During the Q&A there were also comments sent by Marino Biagini and by Teja Krasek (from Slovenia), which were very much appreciated.

There was a glitch at the beginning of the webinar, which was quickly corrected, by the projector unmuting the computer. The Chat facility was disabled by the INFORMS folks due to prior issues for security reasons. 

Being "first" in anything is always risky, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And with technology and the Internet there is always the possibility of a disruption.

I like forward to further discussions and important contributions from our community during these challenging times and when the pandemic is past us.

My Upcoming INFORMS Webinar: Blood, Sweat, and PPEs

The invitation came from Dr. Patricia Neri, who serves on the Board of the Practice Section of INFORMS. Would I be interested in giving the inaugural webinar in their Practice Series? Very quickly I agreed. There was specific interest in having me speak on perishable product supply chains in the Covid-19 pandemic. I have had multiple interviews in the media on this topic (radio, TV, and print) and it was an opportune venue in which to synthesize thoughts as well as earlier and recent research on supply chains and disruptions.

I have been working on the presentation slides for my webinar, which is entitled, "Blood, Sweat, and PPEs: Rescuing Perishable Product Supply Chains and Impacting Policy Through Analytics." The webinar will take place on June 12, 2020, with Q&A to follow. The webinar is open to the public and information on registration is available here. Joining me on the Q&A panel will be Dr. Patricia Neri and Dr. Carrie Beam (I thoroughly enjoyed brainstorming with both recently on the title!). Special thanks also to Beth West of INFORMS for handing the logistics for my webinar.

The World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 global epidemics an official pandemic on March 11, 2020, and, even before then, I was hard at work conducting research on disruptions to supply chains because of the coronavirus. On March 12, 2020, my article on the stressed blood supply chain and the coronavirus was published in The Conversation. To this date, the article remains the most read article by a UMass Amherst faculty member, published in the outlet over the past year. It was followed by an invited piece in the INFORMS Analytics Coronavirus Chronicles.

Perishable product supply chains, including a variety of food ones, PPEs (which are time-sensitive), a well as blood supply chains, are some of the supply chain networks that have been most severely impacted in the pandemic. In this webinar, I will discuss our earlier work and present research on such topics and, for the latter, I will emphasize new work that includes the inclusion of labor under different constraints in supply chains. I will also highlight a recent paper on convalescent plasma that I wrote with Dr. Pritha Dutta on what has become a unique market consisting of competition among nonprofits and profit organizations for plasma from Covid-19 survivors for therapies in those suffering from the coronavirus. Finally, I will describe how work in operations research and analytics is influencing policy on a national level in a significant way.

And, since several of you have asked, below, I have highlighted some of the recent media interviews that I have taken part in, which are accessible on the links below. Many thanks for the interest! Hope that you can join me for the webinar.

Interview by UMass Amherst

Article on the Isenberg School Website on Impact on Policy

NBC Boston TV News Interview on Meat Shortages

Radio Interview on Farm Talk

Diaper and Wipe Shortage Radio Interview - Los Angeles

Interview for The Verge on Algorithms in the Pandemic and Supply Chains

Interview in USA Today on Diaper and Wipe Shortages

Interview in Morning Consult on Collateral Damage in the Pandemic

Also, many thanks to the American Mathematical Society and to Mike Breen for hosting me on the podcast on supply chains and Covid-19.

Terrific Experience as a Summer Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

The past several months, I have been a Summer Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) at Harvard University.  In 2005-2006, I had been a Fellow at RIAS, and previous Fellows can apply to return for the summer. When I became aware of such an opportunity, I applied, and was thrilled to be selected as a Summer Fellow.

Last year I was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College at Oxford University, and for 4 summers prior, I had spent time as a Visiting Professor at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. I believe that, as an academic, one should put oneself in new surroundings to garner inspiration from. This helps in terms of research and personal growth, which one can then utilize even in teaching.

I thought it would be interesting to head back to Cambridge, Massachusetts and to explore another intellectual center. Since during the year I am based at UMass Amherst this made for a much easier move than the past couple of summers. Remarkably, although Amherst is physically only about 90 minutes away from Cambridge it is very different since it is quite rural.

Living this summer at 83 Brattle Street, which is only two blocks from Harvard Square, as we had back in 2005-2006, made for a 5 minute walk to Radcliffe. The Fellows are now housed in beautiful Byerly Hall in the Radcliffe Yard.

The research projects that I was focusing on this summer included developing and solving game theory models for disaster relief and blood supply chains. With a corner office in Byerly Hall and with a view of a garden and fountain, I could not help but be inspired.  I had asked for a standing desk, and loved working at it, equipped in the morning with a latte from a neighboring cafe.

Immediately I felt welcome, by meeting other Fellows over the years, and seeing staff that had been here when I was at RIAS in 2005-2006. I enjoyed conversations with a novelist, physicists, a biochemist, applied mathematicians, and anthropologists, to name just a few of the disciplines represented.

RIAS, being at Harvard, was also a magnet for many visitors, and I was delighted to be able to have my doctoral students visit, and to get together with other colleagues at Harvard and former students from UMass Amherst as well, and even relatives, with Harvard faculty included.

 

 

Radcliffe provided a peaceful, beautiful environment and I am so grateful that when I needed a room with a landline for a radio interview, one was found for me. It was a pleasure being interviewed for the Dr. Matt Townsend Show based on my research on critical infrastructure.

The lunches that the Fellows indulged in at RIAS helped to fortify us as did the conversations and the various seminars.

Since arriving in early June, I managed to prepare (and they were all delivered) 7 different talks, some of which I have posted, including one on June 21st at Radcliffe. We also started  the process of  editing of the new Dynamics of Disasters volume with Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, based on the conference that we co-organized and that took place in early July in Greece. 
I also completed three papers, which were submitted for publication, and revised two others.

The friendliness of the administrators and staff at Radcliffe and the surrounding community added to the wonderful experience. The research continues and support by RIAS is being gratefully acknowledged. RIAS, with its nurturing of creativity, scholarship, and interdisciplinary research,  will always be a second home for me and for this I am extremely thankful.

Media Coverage of Our Blood Supply Chain Research

It has been a very busy time since my article, "Uncertainty in blood supply chains creating challenges for industry," was published in The Conversation last month, and not only since the new semester has begun at the University of Massachusetts Amherst!

The article was reprinted in several publications, including: Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, the LA-based magazine GoodHealth, and even ORMS Today, the magazine of my favorite professional society, INFORMS, made a note of it in the February issue.

Since my article's publication, I have also received numerous emails from around the world, including from researchers and practitioners in the United Kingdom and in Israel, as well as from the United States, and have had extended conversations as well.

In particular, I very much enjoyed speaking with  Dr. Brian White and Jarrian James of Bloodbuy. Dr. White wrote this interesting blogpost: "Bloods and circuits: The RAND Corporation report on the role of technology in maintaining a stable blood supply," which references my article in The Conversation.

The Isenberg School of Management posted this piece by the Isenberg School's terrific Senior Editor, Lou Wigdor, entitled: ``Lessons learned from blood supply chains," which noted my wonderful collaborators on blood supply chain research, who were two of my former doctoral students: Dr. Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College and Dr. Min Yu of the University of Portland. Together, with the "other" Professor Nagurney, we co-authored the book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products, which was published by Springer in 2013.

I also was interviewed by Karen Brown, an award-winning health journalist. You can listen to her  report:   "America's blood economy: Vulnerable to economic trends, health advances"
on New England Public Radio.

The full transcript of the radio segment can be viewed here.

And our research on the topic of blood supply chains in the new economic climate continues. I will be presenting the paper, "Mergers and acquisitions in blood banking systems: A supply chain network approach,"  co-authored with Drs. Masoumi and Yu,  at the IFORS conference in Quebec City. 

Also, Pritha Dutta, a doctoral student in Management Science at the Isenberg School, will be presenting our paper, "Competition for blood donations: A Nash Equilibrium network framework, " 
at the New  England Decision Sciences Institute (NEDSI) Conference, which is being held not far from Amherst, in Springfield, Massachusetts, next month!

My Article on Blood Supply Chain Challenges for The Conversation

In mid December I set out to write an article for The Conversation, which is one of my favorite sites. I was lucky to work with a fabulous Editor, Lynne Anderson.

The article, Uncertainty in blood supply chains creating challenges for industry, is a distillation of some of the research that we have done on blood supply chains at the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School, coupled with updates on the latest economic issues facing the industry. I argue in the article, for example, that supply chain analytics can help in quantifying any synergies associated with mergers and acquisitions in this industry and help in better matching supply with demand.

My article was the top story on Monday in The Conversation and was featured on its homepage. It has been picked up by several news outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle. The article is characterized under Health and Medicine.

I never, ever thought that something I wrote would end up on The Conversation's homepage next to and on the same page as a photo of President-elect Trump but it did so on Monday.

This article has attracted good, high quality attention and I have had the pleasure of getting messages from professionals from various countries highlighting even how blood supply chains are managed there and what kinds of incentives are given to attract donors. Given that during the holiday season and the winter there may be fewer donations, this is quite relevant, although the industry, overall, now has a much lower demand for blood in the US than only a decade ago and one of the reasons is that fewer pints are transfused in many surgeries and new surgical techniques result in less loss of blood in patients.

 I very much enjoyed working with the Editor and in getting the article polished and published and plan on writing other articles for The Conversation in the future.

It was also cool to see the article make the UMass Amherst homepage (and, appropriately, right next to an announcement of an event for a new Master's in Business and Analytics at the Isenberg School!

As operations and analytics supply chain researchers it is important to get the news on the research out to the public. This is one reason that I also blog!

Many thanks to Lynne Anderson of The Conversation for helping us to get the news on our research out!

Mr. Jeff Meyer, CEO of Red Cross Blood Services for MA and CT at the Isenberg School

Bringing expert speakers to share their practical know-how and experiences is fabulous for students' education!

Today we had the honor and privilege of hosting Mr. Jeff Meyer, CEO of Blood Services for the Red Cross for MA and CT, in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management.

He was fabulous. First some background: Jeff received his undergrad degree at Babson and his MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management, where he focused on (bravo) operations management. How can you not love a speaker who comes in and starts talking about linear programming models and how in many of the team projects at UCLA students wanted to work on Red Cross projects because of the challenging problems.

Mr. Meyer drove almost 2 hours from Dedham to speak to my class and we kept him overtime for about 40 minutes because his knowledge of blood supply chains is vast. He has worked for the Red Cross for 16 years and, would you believe,  he was a consultant for the Red Cross and was offered a job with this organization the day before 9/11. He accepted the job since after the terrorist attacks (and he was in DC and could not get back home for a week) since he decided he wanted to help humanity.

He had worked in California for Red Cross blood services and was responsible for managing the construction of a $41 million facility for blood services in southern CA.

Mr. Meyer had the class (and me) on the edges of our seats informing us of how the demand for blood in the  U.S. has declined since 2008. He spoke of negative drivers and positive drivers and the consolidation of blood centers. The Red Cross now supplies about 40% of the blood in the US and has closed 3 of its 5 testing centers. He spoke about that there are "wet" surgeons and "dry" surgeons, with the former liking more transfusions whereas the latter utilizing fewer in their surgeries. He stated that in studies, more transfusions do not yield better outcomes.

He showed us a map of the US marking where there was Red Cross coverage and presence and as Mr. Lou Wigdor, our Isenberg School writer and editor noted, the white parts corresponded to the oil states!

 I was very impressed that he multiple times spoke about the importance of network optimization, since this is what we have been learning in the class for the past 2 weeks.

He also emphasized how efficiencies can be gained from having a bigger collection site (fewer vehicles needed and there is greater potential for good service and more spread out and comfortable service as donors arrive).  He noted that, although some perceive blood as being a commodity, it is not and there are many differentiated "products" that it provides.

The challenges of this supply chain are immense because of the perishability - with red blood cells having a shelf life of 42 days and platelets only 5 days. Platelets are needed to treat cancer patients and the demand for platelets is growing because of the aging population.

From 2008 and prior there were many cases of blood shortages in the U.S. but the scenario has changed due, for example, to the recession and fewer elective surgeries, more individual blood banking, and medical advances that result in less loss of blood.

He even described a Red Cross blood app which has been very successful - 80% of those who elect to give blood through the app show up for appointments whereas among  those who call for an appointment only 50% do. Clearly, there are also challenges with supply meeting demand and risk associated with donors not showing up.

Interestingly, he also shared with us that different hospitals may have different preferences even as to the kinds of testing that is done on the blood which can cost $200 per pint.

Out of $3billion in annual costs of the Red Cross, $2billion of that is for blood services.

I had done research on blood supply chains with my former doctoral students, Amir H. Masoumi and Min Yu:

• Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization, Anna Nagurney, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, Computational Management Science 9(2) (2012) pp 205-231,
• Supply Chain Network Design of a Sustainable Blood Banking System
  Anna Nagurney and Amir H. Masoumi, in Sustainable Supply Chains: Models, Methods and Public Policy Implications, T. Boone, V. Jayaraman, and R. Ganeshan, Editors, Springer, London, England (2012) pp 49-72.

Mr. Jeff Meyer brought out so many interesting research questions today in his brilliant lecture that we will be kept very busy.

I'd like to thank him for sharing with the class such illuminating insights about this life-saving supply chain, for which logistics plays a fundamental role.

Thanks to Kim Goulette, Executive Director of the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross

Yesterday, the new Executive Director of the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross in western Massachusetts, Ms. Kim Goulette, spoke to the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class.

Ms. Goulette assumed this position after the retirement of Mr. Rick Lee, who had served with the Red Cross for over 3 decades and who spoke to my students in previous years on 2 separate occasions. As Kim said to the students: "She has big shoes to fill!"

She provided the class with a brief history of the Red Cross and Clara Barton, of course, and emphasized what is unique about the Red Cross as a nonprofit organization, which was very interesting. The Red Cross provides immediate response to people in need because of disasters  and, in a sense, consists of  "first responders," about 97% of whom are volunteers.  Whether it is food, blankets, drinks, or even teddy bears for children in the nearterm, or shelter, food, and resources during the recovery phase, Red Cross volunteers are there to help. I saw such teddy bears last spring when I had the honor of attending the Hometown Heroes breakfast in Springfield as a guest of Mr. Rick Lee's.

Ms. Goulette spoke about the big fire in Amherst last summer in an apartment complex at which she assisted after only about 1 week on the job.She also spoke about the role of the Red Cross in feeding the National Guardsmen who were deployed to eastern MA because of the multiple immense snowfalls this winter that disrupted lives, transportation, and other infrastructure because frozen and burst pipes and collapsed roofs.

She mentioned the gains for the community through the new Red Cross Springfield headquarters with its activities, including blood donations, under one roof. This consolidation has resulted in increased efficiencies in disaster responses.

Ms. Goulette highlighted the various activities of the Red Cross in communities that some may not be as aware of, such as the call centers for military families (Rick Lee's brilliant idea), CPR training and certification, youth programs, international programs, and volunteer training.

She shared many fascinating facts with us such as that every 9 minutes the Red Cross is responding to a disaster and it spends $360 million preparing for disasters. It is entirely dependent on donors for funding and she mentioned the challenges associated with financial donations that are earmarked for a particular disaster. In the US, there are 61,000 shelter sites, which include schools, and with the mobile kitchens, the RC is able to serve up to 1 million meals a day.  I was curious so I asked what meals the National Guardsmen were provided in the Boston area recently and she mentioned chicken soup, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot chocolate, and coffee. The volunteers get woken up at 2AM and then retrieved the supplies for delivery in eastern MA.

I found the challenging new landscape of blood donations and collections very interesting since, along with two of my doctoral students, who are now professors, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, I wrote several articles on blood supply chains.  She mentioned "competition" in the blood supply chain industry, which one would not normally think of, different surgical procedures, which are resulting in less blood loss and, hence, need for transfusions, and also the emphasis on decreasing wastage. The Red Cross now supplies only about 40% of the blood in the US. We in Operations Management always care about supply meeting demand and, in this sector, there is the perishability aspect of blood, and uncertainty as to demand (for unscheduled procedures due to accidents, for example) as well as to supply (will the donors show up and, if so, how many).

There were many questions from the students and I am sure many thoughtful reflections that continue.

Thanks to Ms. Kim Goulette for the great lecture and to the American Red Cross and other Red Cross societies for great work in disaster relief and reducing human suffering!

Challenges in the Blood Industry - Opportunities for Supply Chain Redesign and Operations Research

The article by Matt Wald (who was a  classmate of mine at Brown University), "Blood Industry Hurt by Surplus" in today's The New York Times  was extremely well-researched and timely. It highlighted the new challenges faced by this critical healthcare industry and ended with the quote by Dr. Ferraris of the University of Kentucky: Every surgeon who's ever lived has seen somebody whose life was saved by a blood transfusion.

Changes in medical procedures with innovations have greatly reduced the need for transfusions in the past several years, with last year's demand being about 11 million units, with 15 million being needed five years ago. As a consequence, blood bank revenue is falling, down from a high of $5 billion in 2008 to only about $1.5 billion expected this year. The Red Cross supplies about 40% of the blood to hospitals and other healthcare facilities, such as surgical units. The cost of a unit of blood to hospitals ranges from $225-$240.

Nevertheless, even at reduced demand, the blood banks still require tens of thousands of donors a day. And, of course, and this cannot be emphasized enough, blood is a perishable product and it must undergo rigorous testing and quality control before utilized in patients.

We have written several articles on blood supply chains and also included the topic in our most recent book: "Network Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products."

The most relevant paper of ours related to the issues brought forth by Matt Wald is: Supply Chain Network Design of a Sustainable Blood Banking System, Anna Nagurney and Amir H. Masoumi, in Sustainable Supply Chains: Models, Methods and Public Policy Implications, T. Boone, V. Jayaraman, and R. Ganeshan, Editors, Springer, London, England (2012) pp 49-72. Here we dealt with demand uncertainty and with penalties associates with shortages or surpluses (as is the real-world industry scenario now) with appropriate weights imposed. We also handled perishability of this life-saving product using a generalized network approach and also included costs associated with wastage.

Given that this industry has not been immune to mergers and acquisitions, The New York Times article  reports that America's Blood Centers, an association of blood banks,  has seen a drop in members from 87 five years ago to 68 today.  Also, at a recent meeting of blood industry experts, it was predicted that most of the blood collections agencies, because they have good relationships with donors would survive,  but that there would be mergers associated with such blood supply chain network activities as testing, stockpiling, and distribution. In the paper, A System-Optimization Perspective for Supply Chain Network Integration: The Horizontal Merger Case, that I wrote and that was published in Transportation Research E 45: (2009) pp 1-15, I proposed synergy measures associated with supply chain network integration under cost minimization, exactly what is needed in this industry. 

We had had a wonderful exchange with Dr. Walter Dzik of Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital, who is an expert on hematology and transfusion medicine since he was aware of our blood supply chain research. He told us that, although now Red Blood Cells (RBCs) are considered to have a shelf-life of 42 days, the goal is to have the blood  stored for not longer than 7 days. Interestingly, it has been found that older blood is also of lower quality. This would put additional pressures on the blood supply chains in terms of time-sensitivity.

Thanks to Matt Wald for such a great article from which many additional research ideas are germinating!

Science, Global Supply Chains, and Operations Research

I was thrilled to see the cover of the recent Science magazine published by AAAS with a feature section on "Rethinking the global supply chain."

In this volume were several themed articles that I especially enjoyed, including "The information highway gets physical," in which ideas from the existing Internet are being promulgated to create a physical Internet for more effective logistics. Personally, and since we are part of a big NSF project to reenvision the existing Internet, I also see many synergies in the reverse direction through appropriate game theory models! In that nice article, written by Jeffrey Mervis, operations researcher Russ Meller was noted, and his co-authored book, "The Physical Internet: The Network of Logistics Networks." I sent Russ a congrats yesterday and he responded en route to the airport for a flight to Europe. I also enjoyed reading quotes from Kevin Gue, who gave a keynote recently at the Physical Internet conference in Quebec City  (and who is moving from Auburn U. to the U. of Louisville). I was already committed to being in Europe in May so I did not attend. The conference was hosted by Benoit Montreuil of Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.

Kevin J. Dooley of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University also had a nice article, "The whole chain," in which he stated that Science is key to holistically managing sustainable supply chains, which I thoroughly agree with and which we have been emphasizing in many of our sustainable supply chain research articles with applications as varied as blood supply chains and even fast fashion!

In the volume there were also several additional articles on sustainable supply chains, and I found it interesting to see the lists of references and journals represented.

In particular, I very much enjoyed the article. "The science of sustainable supply chains," by Dara O'Rourke, who is at UC Berkeley. It was terrific to see cited therein our latest book, "Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products!"

 

And speaking of supply chains, today we heard the great news that our paper, Supply Chain Network Competition in Time-Sensitive Markets, Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, Jonas Floden, and Ladimer S. Nagurney, was accepted for publication in the journal, Transportation Research E! This paper was recently presented at the 18th European Conference on Mathematics for Industry, Taormina, Italy, June 9-13, 2014 and also at the Conference on Optimization, Control and Applications in the Information Age - in honor of the 60th Birthday of Professor Panos M. Pardalos, Chalkidiki, Greece, June 15-20, 2014.

You can read more about our paper in an earlier blogpost. 

The above presentation can be downloaded in its entirely here.

Blood Supply Chains and Great Journalists

My suitcase is packed and I am pumped for two conferences in Italy and in Greece at which I will be presenting research with collaborators on supply chain networks in time-sensitive markets.

But before I leave for the airport, I wanted to comment on what an amazing week this has been.

Early last week, I had the privilege of being contacted by a journalist,  Paul Sisson, of UT-San Diego.  Sisson focuses on healthcare topics. He was writing an article for his newspaper for the Sunday Business Section on a supply chain we should all very much care about - the blood supply chain. He was wondering, since my group at the Supernetwork Center at the Isenberg School had done quite a lot of research and writing on this topic (and even teaching about it), whether I would be willing to answer some questions.

Although I am now spending a few weeks in Sweden as a Visiting Professor, since effective healthcare supply chains, including the truly unique blood one, are passions of mine (and it was clear that Sisson feels the same way), I had to say, "yes!"

His questions were so interesting, insightful, and thoughtful, I enjoyed the process of addressing them very much.

Paul Sisson's article, "A Vital Supply Chain,"  is online on the newspaper website. 
A pdf version is available here.

Communicating research to a journalist who is very interested in the subject is very gratifying and it also helps one to further flesh out the important aspects of the research findings and their relevance. I very much respect the important work that journalists do in keeping us informed and educated! A hearty thank you! 

Journalists, working with academics, can even help to move research and education forward through appropriate and probing queries!

Although, of course, only some highlights of an interview, even even an extensive one, may actually be published in a newspaper article, the exchange stays with one. This kind of recognition is also further support of the research that we do with collaborators and with our students.

I highlight some fascinating factoids below about blood supply chains.

Think about this - The supply of human blood depends completely on volunteerism since human blood, unlike numerous products, cannot be manufactured. The producers of this critical needs product are humans themselves and they have to be altruistic in their donations, effectively giving a part of themselves to others. The great majority of blood collection facilities in the US are  managed by the Red Cross (about 45%)  or by the network of US Blood Centers (about 50%) and these are nonprofit organizations. Other suppliers of blood are certain hospitals, usually, larger ones.  The collection facilities themselves can be either mobile or fixed. According to the American Red Cross, over 39,000 donations are needed everyday and there have been times when the supply was just 2 days short of running out.

Given that the production and, hence,  supply of blood is based, primarily, to-date,  on volunteers, there is uncertainty on the supply side as well as risk - will donors show up?  Both great and bad weather days may result in insufficient donations. Donors may go to the beach in the case of the former and may be stuck due to a snowstorm in the case of the latter.  There is also uncertainty  on the demand side since although some medical procedures are pre-scheduled and for such procedures demand for blood products can  be more easily forecast, there are also unforeseeable emergencies that do take place (disasters, accidents, etc.).  Hence, balancing supply and demand is a matter of life and death in this supply chain. Of 1,700 hospitals taking part in a survey in 2007, a total of 492 reported cancellations of elective surgeries on one or more days due to blood shortages. Also, there are no economies of scale in "production" in this supply chain since many of the volunteers (can) donate only 1 pint at a time and do so, typically, in the case of repeat donors, only twice a year.

This blood  supply chain is, in effect, a reverse supply chain. Most products - think of cars and high tech products - are assembled by putting distinct parts/components together to make the final product. Whole blood, when extracted, on the other hand, is disassembled into such components as Red Blood Cells (RBCs) and plasma with platelets extracted through a process known as asphoresis. Interestingly, thus, blood supply chains have commonality with reverse supply chains as in the electronic recycling of such products as computers and cell phones (where extraction of certain elements can be a treasure trove). (We have done research on these supply chains as well.)

Blood is highly perishable with the shelf life of RBCs ranging from 35 days - 42 days, that of platelets 5 days, whereas plasma can be frozen for up to 1 year. Therefor, there are immense time pressures on this product;  at the same time, blood must undergo numerous steps of testing, processing, storage, and distribution to the points of demand such as hospitals and other healthcare facilities.


For those of you who are interested in reading more about our research on blood supply chains, which was inspired by one of my former doctoral student's (Amir H. Masoumi's) great interest in the subject, I have highlighted papers with links below.

Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization, Anna Nagurney, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, Computational Management Science 9(2): (2012) pp 205-231.

Supply Chain Network Design of a Sustainable Blood Banking System, Anna Nagurney and Amir H. Masoumi, in Sustainable Supply Chains: Models, Methods and Public Policy Implications, T. Boone, V. Jayaraman, and R. Ganeshan, Editors, Springer, London, England (2012) pp 49-72.

Also, our latest book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chains for Perishable Products, co-authored with Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland, Professor Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College, and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, provides a synthesis of some of the other fascinating supply chains, along with blood supply chains,  that we have worked on that deal with perishable and time-sensitive products.

Both Dr. Min Yu and Dr. Amir H. Masoumi received their PhDs from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and their concentrations were in Management Science.

Optimizing Blood Supply Chains for Healthcare

Our paper, Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization, Anna Nagurney, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, now appears in the journal, Computational Management Science 9(2): (2012) pp 205-231.

It is in the April 2012 issue of Computational Management Science and is in a special issue edited by Professor Georg Pflug.

In this paper, we focus on a specific perishable product – that of human blood – and the optimization of a blood banking network system. Nahmias (1982) claimed that: “The interest among researchers in perishable inventory problems has been sparked primarily by problems of blood bank management. Some of the possible reasons for this interest might be that blood bank research has been supported by public funds.” Prastacos (1984) provided a review, to that date, of blood inventory management, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Whether or not Nahmias’ statement is still valid – considering all the recent concerns about the safety of perishable products, blood bank management from a supply chain network perspective merits a fresh and updated approach.

This topic is especially timely today, since it has been reported that the number of disasters and the number of people affected by disasters has been growing over the past decade and blood is certainly a life-saving product (cf. Nagurney and Qiang (2009)). Blood service operations are a key component of the healthcare system all over the world. According to the American Red Cross, over 39,000 donations are needed everyday in the United States, alone, and the blood supply is frequently reported to be just 2 days away from running out. Of 1,700 hospitals participating in a survey in 2007, a total of 492 reported cancellations of elective surgeries on one or more days due to blood shortages. While for many hospitals, the reported number of blood-related delays was not significant, hospitals with as many days of surgical delays as 50 or even 120 have been observed. Furthermore, in 2006, the national estimate for the number of units of whole blood and all components outdated by blood centers and hospitals was 1,276,000 out of 15,688,000 units (Whitaker et al. (2007)). Considering also the ever-increasing hospital cost of a unit of red blood cells with a 6.4% increase from 2005 to 2007 further highlights the criticality of this perishable, lifesaving product.

 
In the US, this criticality has become more of an issue in the Northeastern and Southwestern states since this cost is meaningfully higher compared to that of the Southeastern and Central states. Moreover, hospitals were responsible for approximately 90% of the outdates, with this volume of medical waste imposing discarding costs to the already financially-stressed hospitals (The New York Times (2010)).

In this paper, we developed a generalized network optimization model for the complex supply chain of human blood, which is a life-saving, perishable product. In particular, we considered a regionalized blood banking system consisting of collection sites, testing and processing facilities, storage facilities, distribution centers, as well as points of demand, which, typically, include hospitals.

Our multicriteria system-optimization approach on generalized networks with arc multipliers captures many of the critical issues associated with blood supply chains such as the determination of the optimal allocations, and the induced supply-side risk, as well as the induced cost of discarding the waste, while satisfying the uncertain demands as closely as possible.

The framework that we present in this paper is also applicable, with appropriate modifications, to the
optimization of other supply chains of perishable products.


The complete analysis, along with references, can be found in our paper.