A dynamic logistics model for medical resources allocation in an epidemic control with demand forecast updating

This paper presents a dynamic logistics model for medical resources allocation that can be used to control an epidemic diffusion. It couples a forecasting mechanism, constructed for the demand of a medicine in the course of such epidemic diffusion, and a logistics planning system to satisfy the forecasted demand and minimize the total cost. The forecasting mechanism is a time discretized version of the Susceptible‐Exposed‐Infected‐Recovered model that is widely employed in predicting the trajectory of an epidemic diffusion. The logistics planning system is formulated as a mixed 0–1 integer programming problem characterizing the decision making at various levels of hospitals, distribution centers, pharmaceutical plants, and the transportation in between them. The model is built as a closed‐loop cycle, comprising forecast phase, planning phase, execution phase, and adjustment phase. The parameters of the forecast mechanism are adjusted in reflection of the real data collected in the execution phase by solving a quadratic programming problem. A numerical example is presented to verify efficiency of the model.