Proactive and reactive inventory policies in humanitarian operations

Inventory Management in Humanitarian Operations: Impact of Amount, Schedule, and Uncertainty in Funding

The talk focuses on the simultaneous resource allocation, lot-sizing and scheduling in a multi-machine, deterministic ELSP environment. The objective is to minimize the long-run average production, setup, inventory, and shortage penalty costs. We develop a concave minimization model of the problem, generate heuristic solutions, lower bounding methods and present computational results.

Conceptualising Inventory Prepositioning in the Humanitarian Sector

Improved responsiveness to natural and man-made disasters is critical to saving lives and alleviating the suffering caused by such disasters. Emphasis on the design of the relief chain to reduce delivery time of relief inventory improves responsiveness. This is the essence of inventory pre-positioning (IPP). IPP is yet to be clearly defined; and the main factors affecting IPP decision-making ne...

Proactive and Efficient Spare Parts Inventory Management Policies Considering Reliability Issues

Fleet Management Coordination in Decentralized Humanitarian Operations

We study incentive alignment for the coordination of operations in humanitarian settings. Our research focuses on transportation, the second largest overhead cost to humanitarian organizations after personnel. Motivated by field research, we study the fleet size problem from a managerial perspective. In terms of transportation, an equity focused Humanitarian Program implemented by an Internatio...

Operations Research in Humanitarian Logistics Decisions

The decision-making process on humanitarian logistics deals with variables related to the flow and quality of supplies, since the receipt of emergency relief items, its classification, stock, separation and delivery. Consequently, this decision-making process is crucial for seeking the best results in the allocation of scarce resources for storage and transportation in humanitarian operations, ...