| Article ID: | iaor200971597 |
| Country: | Germany |
| Volume: | 31 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Start Page Number: | 707 |
| End Page Number: | 725 |
| Publication Date: | Oct 2009 |
| Journal: | OR Spectrum |
| Authors: | Hartl Richard F, Hemmelmayr Vera, Doerner Karl F, Savelsbergh Martin W P |
| Keywords: | distribution, programming: integer, inventory |
We introduce a problem faced by the blood bank of the Austrian Red Cross for Eastern Austria: how to cost-effectively organize the delivery of blood products to Austrian hospitals? We investigate the potential value of switching from the current vendee-managed inventory set up to a vendor-managed inventory system. We present solution approaches based on integer programming and variable neighborhood search and evaluate their performance.