Application of a Blockchain Enabled Model in Disaster Aids Supply Network Resilience

The disaster area is a dynamic environment. The bottleneck in distributing the supplies may be from the damaged infrastructure or the unavailability of accurate information about the required amounts. The success of the disaster response network is based on collaboration, coordination, sovereignty, and equality in relief distribution. Therefore, a reliable dynamic communication system is required to facilitate the interactions, enhance the knowledge for the relief operation, prioritize, and coordinate the goods distribution. One of the promising innovative technologies is blockchain technology which enables transparent, secure, and real-time information exchange and automation through smart contracts. This study analyzes the application of blockchain technology on disaster management resilience. The influences of this most promising application on the disaster aid supply network resilience combined with the Internet of Things (IoT) and Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling (DVFS) algorithm are explored employing a network-based simulation. The theoretical analysis reveals an advancement in disaster-aids supply network strategies using smart contracts for collaborations. The simulation study indicates an enhance in resilience by improvement in collaboration and communication due to more time-efficient processing for disaster supply management. From the investigations, insights have been derived for researchers in the field and the managers interested in practical implementation

Resilience in Humanitarian Supply Chains: A Focus on the Procurement Decisions

This thesis looks into how the need for resilience in humanitarian aid supply chains influences procurement strategy decisions. Increasingly, the need for resilience in supply chains has become undoubted and management researchers have prescribed diverse ways of pursuing it; not only so that supply chains may be better prepared to avoid, respond and recover from disruptions, but to also provide them with competitive advantage. Considering that the procurement function has gone beyond a simple business function to include the strategic management of resources and suppliers when pursuing supply chain resilience (SCR), the role of procurement decisions cannot be understated, especially as suppliers could become significant sources of disruptions. This is even more pronounced in humanitarian supply chains where disruptions do not only result in the loss of limited resources but sometimes human lives as well. Due to this criticality for resilience in humanitarian supply chains and the limited research here particularly from a procurement perspective, this research collects qualitative data through semi-structured interviews and document analysis from 8 UK-based humanitarian organisations. The data is analysed to identify how these organisations pursue SCR formative elements from a procurement perspective and also how pre-contract procurement decisions relative to inter-organisational interactions are guided by the need for resilience. Findings show that cross-training, flexible contracting, and financial resilience are critical to attaining SCR in humanitarian supply chains as they influence many of the identified formative elements. Differences are identified in the relationships between decisions taken under procurement strategy towards resilience from those in commercial supply chains, with monetary value and donor requirements being major influencing factors. Donor influence on procurement decisions in humanitarian organisations is identified to positively influence multiple formative elements including risk avoidance, sustainability, decision making and culture. It however inhibits flexibility and agility. Contributions from this research include the presentation of a theoretical framework on procurement strategy decisions towards achieving SCR. This is then empirically tested in UK humanitarian supply chain context and a simple but useful framework to aid managerial decision making in the sector is provided

Multi-level Analytic Network Process Model to Mitigate Supply Chain Disruptions in Disaster Recovery Planning

Over the past few decades, environmental changes have led to more frequent occurrences and greater intensities of natural disasters worldwide. In terms of globally connected supply chains, this has resulted in an enormous economical loss for corporations. Therefore, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) planning and management has become essential for businesses in order to protect their critical business flow. Yet there is a lack of systematic and transparent methodologies for companies to handle this problem. Hence, this thesis introduces a novel approach to combine consecutive steps of the Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) process within one application. The multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool called the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is employed to identify critical products of a business and match them with optimal disruption mitigation strategies based on an evaluation of benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks (BOCR). To validate the method developed in this thesis, a case study using historical data of a U.S. company (Company XYZ) is introduced. The results of the ANP mathematical modeling demonstrate that the developed methodology provides a valuable approach to analyze and confirm BC/DR planning decisions. Moreover, an expert of Company XYZ confirmed that the suggested solution established through this case study is in agreement with the preferable choice based on his expertise and professional decision-making. Further research could extend the proposed methodology to other fields of BC/DR planning, such as IT Disaster Recovery Planning or Human Disaster Relief

Developing a Logistics Risk Assessment Tool

Economies around the world have thrived in the wake of the development and keen understanding of effective supply chain management practices. As a result, organizations have become more dependent on other organizations to move their products and services to completion due to complex sourcing and shipping arrangements that have precipitated from the formation of sophisticated supply chains. A supply chain is in general a flow of products or services. When this flow is disrupted or halted, disastrous consequences can ensue. In the worst cases, such as with a disaster relief organization like the American Red Cross, disruptions in supply chains could mean the loss of human life. Although more supply chain managers recognize that disruptions along supply chains can cause millions of dollars in lost revenue and large losses of goodwill, very few know exactly what risks their organizations are exposed to. The aim of this research is to better understand what risks are present along each point in the supply chain – both internally and externally – and to develop a way to assess those risks. Furthermore, this research aims to understand how to mitigate these risks for organizations. Ultimately, the goal is to employ these findings in the form of a web tool that surveys users about their supply chain, assesses their current levels of risk, and suggests ways to mitigate this risk

Collaborative Prepositioning Network Design for Regional Disaster Response

We present a collaborative prepositioning strategy to strengthen the disaster preparedness of the Caribbean countries, which are frequently hit by hurricanes. Since different subsets of countries are affected in each hurricane season, significant risk pooling benefits can be achieved through horizontal collaboration, which involves joint ownership of prepositioned stocks. We worked with the intergovernmental Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency to design a collaborative prepositioning network in order to improve regional response capacity. We propose a novel insurance-based method to allocate the costs incurred to establish and operate the proposed collaborative prepositioning network among the partner countries. We present a stochastic programming model, which determines the locations and amounts of relief supplies to store, as well as the investment to be made by each country such that their premium is related to the cost associated with the expected value and the standard deviation of their demand. We develop a realistic data set for the network by processing real-world data. We conduct extensive numerical analyses and present insights that support practical implementation. We show that a significant reduction in total inventory can be achieved by applying collaborative prepositioning as opposed to a decentralized policy. Our results also demonstrate that reducing the replenishment lead time during the hurricane season and improving sea connectivity are essential to increasing the benefits resulting from the network.TÜBİTAK ; Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO) ; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canad

RFID Applied to Supply Chain Logistics in Disaster Recovery

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments to use RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) for supply chain logistics in the construction industry and identify potential applications of this technology for disaster recovery in construction operations. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and extreme weather conditions can cause significant damage to local communities and disruptions to the local supply chain. The effective movement of resources during disaster recovery operations is critical in a postdisaster recovery environment. RFID technology has advanced to the level that the technology could be used to improve the supply chain preparedness, people, material and equipment locating and tracking, and corresponding billing operations in many industries. Current RFID technology could be used in the construction industry in areas to automate material tracking in off-site warehouse of construction firms or suppliers, to establish initial location of material received on construction sites, to track materials that are being shared and in common areas for multiple construction sites, to restock material in laydown or warehouses, to minimize material over-ordering with better tracking of quantity information, to reduce loss from theft and support site security measures, and to assist site equipment and fuel management. Studies have shown that 3.1% of total construction costs could be saved after implementing RFID technology tagging and tracking materials on site and in warehouses. In the case of after-natural-disasters reconstruction, materials locating and tracking activities are highly valuable because disaster relief reconstruction site conditions are more challenging than regular construction site conditions. Reconstruction resources are often limited and difficult to move in and out. Significant construction cost savings can be achieved with RFI-enabled material tracking and locating systems. A review of the current technology provides many emerging applications of RFID technology for the broader construction industry. This paper examines direct applications of RFID for disaster relief reconstruction operations

Emergency Management Benchmarking Study: Lessons for Increasing Supply Chain Resilience

The challenge to manage a business today is bigger than ever, because we cannot think only about our organization, but the intricate network of organizations that form our supply chain. Some organizations cope far better than others with both the prospect and the manifestation of unquantifiable risk -- they share a critical trait: resilience. This study researches emergency management organizations which are required to maintain a state of readiness for immediate reaction, and evaluates best practices in preparedness, detection, response and recovery. Extracting insights from multiple interviews, this research verified that most of the current emergency management best practices do indeed increase resilience without increasing redundancy; consequently, performance is improved in a cost-effectively way. Applications to supply chain management are made to recommended enhancements to overall resilience