Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) In Blood Supply Chain Management
Open Access
- Author:
- Choi, Sung Hee
- Graduate Program:
- Industrial Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- None
- Committee Members:
- Dr Soundar Kumara, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- Bar-code
Radio Frequency Identification(RFID)
Blood Supply Chain - Abstract:
- RFID, Radio Frequency Identification, is one of the promising identification technologies, which scans the identity of a person or an object without direct contact using radio waves and keeps track of the data on the object with an RFID tag in real-time. Those properties of RFID enable a system to make quicker and more accurate identification of an object. For that reason, bar coded systems are being replaced by RFID technology in various fields such as, asset tracking, manufacturing, logistics, and so on. Among many applications, this thesis is focused on blood inventory management and understanding the effectiveness of the RFID systems in that context. In this thesis, the suggested RFID system in the blood inventory management is associated with temperature sensors to monitor the condition in which blood over its life cycle. The temperature is recognized by the sensors and recorded on the RFID tag of the blood bag. The recorded temperature history can be used for identifying whether a blood unit is being exposed to proper temperature failing which it can deteriorate. The real-time blood information offered by the RFID system could influence the daily blood inventory level and order quantity. The effectiveness of the proposed RFID system for blood supply chain is validated by modeling a simulation because as it is hard to obtain optimal solution reflecting the dynamic condition in blood supply chain. We test the effectiveness of RFID system in blood supply chain in terms of blood condition checking time in an ARENA simulation model. By comparing the blood condition checking times with and without RFID system, we prove that the RFID system reduces the blood condition checking time.