Understanding Pharmaceutical Supply Chains
A conversation with Omid Mohaddesi
Since the onset of the pandemic, we have all learned just how crucial supply chains are in our economy and daily lives; even more so, have we all learned how important pharmaceutical supply chains are, especially when considering the mechanisms of disease spread. Supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry are extremely complicated due to all the different entities involved in decision-making, including actors specific to the industry: regulatory organizations, insurance companies, and GPOs. This is what a recently awarded Northeastern University NSF grant project sets out to investigate.
We sat down with Industrial Engineering Ph.D. student Omid Mohaddesi, who is working under CfD faculty member Casper Harteveld, to learn more about the project and its intended trajectory. Omid comes to Northeastern with previous degrees: a BS in Industrial Engineering and a Master’s in Financial Engineering. One of his recent publications “To Trust or to Stockpile: Modeling Human-Simulation Interaction in Supply Chain Shortages” was awarded for being in the top 5% of papers at the CHI2022 conference.
Theory of Mind
Omid explained that this research has two main avenues of inquiry: one exploring the decision-making in pharmaceutical supply chains through Theory of Mind and another exploring the behaviors in the dynamic system through the use of gamettes (games + vignettes).
The study of participants’ actions through a theory of mind lens gives insight into the decision-making processes of supply chain stakeholders, based on how those stakeholders believe others are acting and reacting within the system. In other words, how are actors making projections about what is going to happen based on how other people in the system are behaving?
Gamettes = games + vignettes
The gamettes allow the team to investigate decision-making processes within simulated supply chain environments — -as serious games, these are made for purposes other than pure entertainment. Study participants are assigned a supply chain role within the gamette, where they are then given certain sets of information, through a support tool, from which they are asked to make decisions. (Learn more about serious games in our Design Research Week 2022-in-review.)
In a previous iteration of this research project, gamettes were deployed to understand the different behavior profiles of actors within the pharmaceutical supply chain ecosystem. From this, the team found three distinct behavior profiles:
- Hoarders — These are people who hoard supplies from the onset of the game, without following the support tool’s recommendations.
- Reactors — These are people who follow the support tool within the game but as soon as they realize there is a disruption in the supply chain system, they react by over-ordering.
- Followers — These are people who consistently followed the recommendations of the support tool throughout the game.
This research was one of the key foundations for the team in receiving their most recent NSF award, SAI-R: Designing an Improved Information Infrastructure for Better Decision Making in Pharmaceutical Supply Chains.
Designing an Improved Information Infrastructure for Better Decision-Making in Pharmaceutical Supply Chains
As there are issues regarding information sharing in the pharmaceutical industry, this NSF grant is further exploring decision-making with a focus on how information sharing within the system further affects decision-making. The environment within which the gamettes are testing participants is dynamic, meaning that each participant’s decision changes the system as is the case in the real world. Previously, the team tested how information sharing affected the behaviors within the three profiles and found that there were cognitive differences depending on if they are recipients of information sharing or not. The team is now tasked with coming up with new models that take into account these cognitive differences.
Interdisciplinary expertise for an interdisciplinary problem
Because the gamettes are testing cognitive processes within dynamic systems, an understanding of both game design and psychology is necessary; this is in addition to the computer science and computer engineering that is required to create the infrastructure needed for these simulations. To this end, the NSF team is composed of experts working in Industrial Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology, and Game Design.
The Principal Investigators on this NSF grant team include:
- Jacqueline Griffin (Principal Investigator) Associate Professor, Mechanical + Industrial Engineering;
- David Kaeli (Co-Principal Investigator) Distinguished Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering;
- Stacy Marsella (Co-Principal Investigator) Professor, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, joint appointment in Psychology;
- Casper Harteveld (Co-Principal Investigator) Associate Professor & Associate Dean Graduate programs, Game Design, College of Arts, Media and Design;
- Ozlem Ergun (Co-Principal Investigator) Distinguished Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs, Mechanical + Industrial Engineering.
Omid mentioned that he really enjoys working in this interdisciplinary team because understanding and managing pharmaceutical supply chains is a wicked problem that requires interdisciplinary expertise to tackle.
Another recent NSF award contributing to the development of this work that CfD faculty member Casper Harteveld has been a part of is Collaborative Research: StudyCrafter: An AI-Supported Platform for Engaging Learners to Conduct Research with Human Subjects (awarded for 2022).
Stay tuned for project updates as the team continues to work towards a more nuanced understanding of pharmaceutical supply chain dynamics.
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