Pharmaceutical Industry Supply Chains: Planning Vaccines’ Distribution

Pharmaceutical supply chains tend to be complex, and its management encounters several challenges. In this work, a decision-support tool based on a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model is proposed, aiming to integrate several strategical-tactical decisions while considering the three pillars of sustainability, which are addressed as objective functions. The economic assessment is performed through the Net Present Value (NPV). The environmental impact assessment follows the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. Accessibility of pharmaceutical products is the major focus for the social assessment, aiming to provide an equal distribution based on the burden of diseases which is made through a DALY-based metric (Disability-Adjusted Life Year). The model is applied to a representative case study aiming to discuss different optimization scenarios and allowing to understand the effect of decisions on each performance indicator. Important results were obtained that show that sustainability issues influence the supply chain design and planning.