Reverse Logistics Network Design for Effective Management of Medical Waste in Epidemic Outbreak: Insights from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan
22 Pages Posted: 18 Feb 2020
Hao Yu
University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway
Xu Sun
University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway
Wei Deng Solvang
University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway
Xu Zhao
China Three Gorges University (CTGU)
Date Written: February 14, 2020
Abstract
The outbreak of an epidemic disease may impose significant treats on human being and may further lead to a global crisis. In order to effectively control epidemic spread, a responsive logistics service is of vital importance. Over the years, researches have been focused on the establishment and the operations of temporary logistics network for delivering medical service and allocating emergency resources. However, the research focus has not been given to the design of a temporary reverse logistics network for medical waste treatment in epidemic outbreak, which, if improperly treated, may accelerate disease spread and pose a significant risk on both medical staffs and patients. Therefore, this paper formulates a novel multi-objective multi-period mixed integer program for reverse logistics network design in epidemic outbreak, which aims at effective management of the exponentially increased medical waste and healthcare hazards within a very short period. The model is validated with a real-world case study based on the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China. Even through the uncertainty of the future tendency of the COVID-19 spread is very high at the time of this research, some general managerial implications can still be obtained based on quantitative analyses. Among other insights, the computational results suggest installing and operating temporary incinerators at proper locations may be an effective solution for managing the tremendous increase of medical waste during the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.
