A computer planning model for blood platelet production and distribution.

We consider a class of policies for stocking hospital blood banks with units of random donor platelet concentrate ('Platelets') based upon scheduled daily deliveries from a regional blood center to replenish the platelet inventory to a fixed 'base stock' level. The measures of interest are the 'shortage rate' (the proportion of days for which the on-hand inventory at the hospital blood bank is insufficient to meet the demand) and the 'outdate rate' (the proportion of total units shipped which are not transfused within the usable life span of 5 days). Our principal results give a predictive model which relates the base stock level to the shortage rate and outdate rate. Our model uses only the mean daily demand as a parameter. It provides a basis to unify the results from other studies which have demonstrated improvements in platelet inventory management in particular hospitals and blood centers.