Assembling the avengers! Trends and knowledge themes in 100 most-cited publications on the blood supply chain: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose This paper assembles the 100 most-cited journal articles and reviews on the blood supply chain to analyze the research trends and knowledge themes. Design/methodology/approach The study conducted a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most-cited journal articles and reviews published between 2004 and 2023 in the context of the blood supply chain, as retrieved from the Scopus database. The study analyzed research trends in this area and knowledge themes through a keyword co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling using VOSviewer. Findings The study reveals that the top 100 most-cited journal articles and reviews within the domain of the blood supply chain were published between 2004 and 2023, with a notable surge in research activity observed in the recent years. Through keyword analysis, five themes, which are “inventory management and supply chain management operations for blood products,” “stochastic and possibilistic programming for designing blood supply chain network and sustainability,” “robust optimization in blood supply chain network design under uncertainty and disaster conditions,” “Network design using multi-objective, possibilistic and two-stage stochastic programming in blood supply chains” and “perishable inventory management in blood supply chains,” were obtained. On the other hand, four themes from bibliographic coupling include “designing blood supply chain networks during the time of disasters and emergencies,” “optimizing and managing blood supply chains for enhancing efficiency and reducing wastage,” “inventory management and advanced techniques in the context blood supply chain management” and “enhancing safety, efficiency and continuous blood supply in the face of various challenges.” Originality/value This study uniquely analyzed 100 most-cited publications in the realm of the blood supply chain, which provides relevant knowledge themes that are crucial for future studies and contributing to the knowledge in this research domain.