Development of sustainable and resilient healthcare and non-cold pharmaceutical distribution supply chain for COVID-19 pandemic: a case study

Abstract

Purpose

This study evaluated the influence of the coronavirus pandemic on the healthcare and non-cold pharmaceutical care distribution supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach

The model involves four objective functions to minimize the total costs, environmental impacts, lead time and the probability of a healthcare provider being infected by a sick person was developed. An improved version of the augmented e-constraint method was applied to solve the proposed model for a case study of a distribution company to show the effectiveness of the proposed model. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify the sensitive parameters. Finally, two robust models were developed to overcome the innate uncertainty of sensitive parameters.

Findings

The result demonstrated a significant reduction in total costs, environmental impacts, lead time and probability of a healthcare worker being infected from a sick person by 40%, 30%, 75% and 54%, respectively, under the coronavirus pandemic compared to the normal condition. It should be noted that decreasing lead time and disease infection rate could reduce mortality and promote the model's effectiveness.

Practical implications

Implementing this model could assist the healthcare and pharmaceutical distributors to make more informed decisions to minimize the cost, lead time, environmental impacts and enhance their supply chain resiliency.

Originality/value

This study introduced an objective function to consider the coronavirus infection rates among the healthcare workers impacted by the pharmaceutical/healthcare products supply chain. This study considered both economic and environmental consequences caused by the coronavirus pandemic condition, which occurred on a significantly larger scale than past pandemic and epidemic crises.

Citation

Abdolazimi, O., Salehi Esfandarani, M., Salehi, M., Shishebori, D. and Shakhsi-Niaei, M. (2023), "Development of sustainable and resilient healthcare and non-cold pharmaceutical distribution supply chain for COVID-19 pandemic: a case study", The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 363-389. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-04-2021-0232