Operations Research Applications in Hospital Supply Chain Management: Evidence from Federal Medical Centre, Keffi

Supply chain inefficiencies in public hospital systems across Nigeria result in chronic drug stockouts, medical consumable wastage, and escalating procurement costs that undermine healthcare delivery quality. This study investigates the application of operations research techniques, including inventory control models, linear programming, and demand forecasting, to improve supply chain performance at the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, Nasarawa State, North Central Nigeria. Secondary data spanning 2020 to 2023 are obtained from the hospital's pharmacy and central medical stores, capturing procurement records, consumption rates, stockout frequencies, and waste disposal logs for 80 essential medicines and consumables. The Economic Order Quantity model with safety stock provisions is applied to derive optimal reorder points and order quantities for each item category. A linear programming model allocates the annual pharmaceutical procurement budget across drug categories to maximise coverage of disease burden priorities subject to supplier and storage constraints. Forecast accuracy for monthly demand is improved using simple exponential smoothing calibrated on rolling 12-month windows. Implementation of the combined operations research framework is projected to reduce annual pharmaceutical wastage by 34 percent and eliminate stockouts for 72 percent of currently problem-prone items. The study provides a practical operations management template replicable across secondary health facilities in the North Central zone. Keywords: operations research, hospital supply chain, inventory control, Federal Medical Centre Keffi, demand forecasting.