Quick Response Healthcare Apparel Supply Chains: Value of RFID and Coordination

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is an important tool for enhancing the performance of inventory management. Motivated by our real-world observations in local hospitals, we study the case where a hospital, which is using a bar-coding system, considers switching to an RFID system because the RFID technology can potentially enhance the hospital's inventory management under the quick response system (QRS). In order to examine the value of RFID, we develop a formal analytical Bayesian model for the information updating process. We derive the expected value of information of the RFID system, and reveal the conditions in which the RFID system outperforms the barcoding system. In addition, we evaluate the impacts of the QRS toward the expected profit and level of risk of the hospital, the supplier, and the whole supply chain (SC) system. We further propose two policies to help achieve SC coordination. Numerical analyses are reported and important insights are generated.