The design of the vaccine supply network under uncertain condition

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to design a proper supply chain network for the vaccine industry in Iran, which considers several features such as uncertainties in demands and cost, perishability of vaccines, wastages in storage, limited capacity and different priorities for demands. Design/methodology/approach This study presents a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model and using a robust counterpart approach for coping with uncertainties of model. Findings The presented robust model in comparison with the deterministic model has a better performance and is more reliable for network design of vaccine supply chain. Originality/value This study considers uncertainty in the network design of vaccine supply chain for the first time in the vaccine context It presents an MILP model where strategic decisions for each echelon and tactical decisions among different echelons of supply chain are determined. Further, it models the difference between high- and low-priority demands for vaccine.