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.

The Blood Supply Chain in the Coronavirus Pandemic

Much has happened since my most recent blogpost on March 7, which celebrated the successful PhD defense of my student, Deniz Besik.

On March 11, 2020, WHO declared a pandemic due to the coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness now known as COVID-19.

As an operations researcher, who does research on various network systems, including perishable product supply chains, with applications in healthcare - blood supply chains and pharma supply chains, I had already been following a multiplicity of disruptions as the coronavirus was spreading globally.

In addition to the supply chain disruptions, I have also experienced professional ones as have virtually all academics worldwide as well as students.

I am on sabbatical now and was honored and delighted to have been invited to give seminars and plenary talks in multiple countries (Canada, France, Italy, and the USA, with others still on the horizon). These have all been postponed/cancelled causing not only disappointment but many foregone experiences, networking opportunities, and adventures.

But safety and health first, and we must do anything and everything in our power to mitigate the pandemic, and to flatten the curve.

I strongly believe that researchers, if at all possible, and if they have an inclination to do so, should write articles for the popular press. I saw the looming crisis in blood supply chains, having been following events in China and Iran, as closely as possible, because of COVID-19. I collected our relevant articles on blood supply chains (a topic we have been researching for the last decade), and impacts of disruptions, and wrote an Op Ed for The Conversation: How coronavirus is upsetting the blood supply chain https://theconversation.com/how-coronavirus-is-upsetting-the-blood-supply-chain-133424

The article has now been reprinted in numerous publications including: SALON, MarketWatch, NavyTimes, EconTimes, and many others. I have been contacted by individuals who wish to help out. I have reached out to medical professionals that I know at top medical facilities to see if plasma of those who have recovered from COVID-19 may be used as treatment, as has been tried in China, supposedly with some success, and is now being investigated at Johns Hopkins.

The research that we have done on the blood supply chain includes the modeling of the perishability of red blood cells; the investigation of a disruption due to a major disease outbreak, which would result in a decrease in eligible donors, as well as disruptions to capacities of testing and processing, that clearly can happen with personnel being quarantined and/or struck by the coronavirus now. Our papers have also explored competition for blood donors using game theory as well as the design of blood supply chains plus the modeling of multiple tiers and even the competition among blood service organizations. We have also worked on quantifying the potential synergy associated with the merging or teaming of blood service organizations as in the case of a disaster.

Also,  we wrote a book to unify some of the knowledge on perishable product supply chains.

It is important to note that respiratory viruses are not transmitted via blood and all those who have the facility and the capability should donate. Since my article in The Conversation was published, the situation has become even more dire with severe blood shortages being reported by the American Red Cross. Blood, unlike many other products, cannot be manufactured, but must be donated by willing donors. Blood service organizations need to make this process now as comfortable and as easy for donors, as possible, by expanding mobile unit coverage, for example.

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An update since the above post was published. Thanks to INFORMS Analytics for publishing my updated article to The Conversation piece in the Coronavirus Chronicles.

And now, as we move further into the pandemic, the possibility of utilizing convalescent plasma in different ways in providing potential therapies, is generating optimism, while, at the same time, there is growing competition among different organizations, and even profit-making ones, for Covid-19 survivors' blood plasma.