THE SUPPLY OF MEDICINES AS EXAMPLE OF A RE-DESIGN OF THE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

ABSTRACT The requirements of medicines are very different depending on the patient that needs them in the health system. Current complexity of varied needs in the health means that supply chains have evolved towards multi-channel networks. Some parallel chains have different objectives depending on the type of medication and type of client (hospital, pharmacy or clinic). We propose a methodology based on synergies for the reconfiguration of multi-channel supply chains. We consider aspects, such as risks, adapted to each type of client. Given a set of possible configurations in the design, AHP (Analytic Hierarchical Process) compares all of them combined with TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution). Synergies in the supply chains are evaluated at static and dynamic levels, referred to strategic, tactical and operative decisions. With the changes proposed, the cost may be reduced at least in a 31%, and the outbound time shortened in 0.5 days. The possible benefits for the distribution agents are shown mainly in costs or time, but also in reliability. Keywords: medicines, supply, multi-business, synergy, AHP, TOPSIS.