Redesigning the Supply of Medical Consumed Materials in a Hospital

This paper proposes a practical approach to evaluate a supply relation, consisting of two parts. Firstly, a supply chain concept is proposed that consists of four areas: physical supply, planning and control, organization and relation and flow of information. This concept is useful in describing and analyzing a supply relation. Secondly, a method based on scenario planning is used to generate alternative designs of a supply relation and to stimulate discussion. The approach will be applied for a hospital and its suppliers of medical consumed materials. The application helps considerably in gaining knowledge about the actual working of the supply relation of both organizations. The alternative scenarios stimulate discussion and development of their relation. The paper also contributes to the knowledge of applying supply chain management concept in a hospital.