Humanitarian Aid Logistics: Response Strategies in the 2015 Refugee Crisis

Humanitarian aid logistics is an emerging field that applies principles of supply chain management and logistics to the humanitarian relief sector. This thesis explores humanitarian aid logistics strategies in the context of the 2015 Refugee Crisis. An unprecedented number of refugees sought asylum in Europe beginning in 2015, where European officials and humanitarian organizations were largely unprepared to provide for them. The 2015 Refugee Crisis offers a unique perspective on humanitarian aid logistics because it requires both short-term and long-term response strategies. Through the framework of management science, a subfield of supply chain management, and logistics, this thesis creates a model that addresses the lack of adequate shelter sites and capacity for refugees in Greece. This is still a relevant problem today as a number of refugees still reside there, and the model adjusts for fluctuating capacity and conditions of the shelters. Long-term issues are discussed as the effects of the Crisis continue. Through analysis of short-term and long-term relief strategies, this thesis provides a foundational understanding of humanitarian aid logistics in crises that involve a complex network of stakeholders and unpredictable timelines. It is also useful for discussions about future implications of humanitarian aid logistics and other crises occurring in other parts of the world

Relief distribution networks : a systematic review

In the last 20 years, Emergency Management has received increasing attention from the scientific community. Meanwhile, the study of relief distribution networks has become one of the most popular topics within the Emergency Management field. In fact, the number and variety of contributions devoted to the design or the management of relief distribution networks has exploded in the recent years, motivating the need for a structured and systematic analysis of the works on this specific topic. To this end, this paper presents a systematic review of contributions on relief distribution networks in response to disasters. Through a systematic and scientific methodology, it gathers and consolidates the published research works in a transparent and objective way. It pursues three goals. First, to conduct an up-to-date survey of the research in relief distribution networks focusing on the logistics aspects of the problem, which despite the number of previous reviews has been overlooked in the past. Second, to highlight the trends and the most promising challenges in the modeling and resolution approaches and, finally, to identify future research perspectives that need to be explored

Facility location optimization model for emergency humanitarian logistics

Since the 1950s, the number of natural and man-made disasters has increased exponentially and the facility location problem has become the preferred approach for dealing with emergency humanitarian logistical problems. To deal with this challenge, an exact algorithm and a heuristic algorithm have been combined as the main approach to solving this problem. Owing to the importance that an exact algorithm holds with regard to enhancing emergency humanitarian logistical facility location problems, this paper aims to conduct a survey on the facility location problems that are related to emergency humanitarian logistics based on both data modeling types and problem types and to examine the pre- and post-disaster situations with respect to facility location, such as the location of distribution centers, warehouses, shelters, debris removal sites and medical centers. The survey will examine the four main problems highlighted in the literature review: deterministic facility location problems, dynamic facility location problems, stochastic facility location problems, and robust facility location problems. For each problem, facility location type, data modeling type, disaster type, decisions, objectives, constraints, and solution methods will be evaluated and real-world applications and case studies will then be presented. Finally, research gaps will be identified and be addressed in further research studies to develop more effective disaster relief operations

Improving Volunteer Productivity and Retention during Humanitarian Relief Efforts

In the aftermath of a disaster, humanitarian organizations quickly assemble a workforce that can immediately serve a community's needs. However, these needs change over time, and the volunteer base (and their skill sets) also changes over time. In this paper, a mathematical programming model is formulated to solve a volunteer assignment problem in which beneficiaries' needs are addressed based on how many volunteers are assigned to each of the levels of needs. In addition, we also examine the changes in these volunteer assignments based on several key cost parameters, need likelihood scenarios, and volunteer training opportunities. Under various demand scenarios, the optimum decision is to begin training some unskilled volunteers early in the response period even when the short-term, unskilled task demands are still high, in preparation for the more skilled, long-term task demands that are yet to come. Humanitarian relief organization managers who generally feel as though a peak of long-term/skilled volunteer task demands will come at some point during the disaster response should strongly consider allowing volunteer training assignments

Making decisions for effective humanitarian actions: a conceptual framework for relief distribution

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Supply Chain Management in Humanitarian Relief Logistics

Hundreds of thousands people are affected by the disasters each year in Pakistan and millions of people are affected in all over the world. These disasters can be man-made like catastrophes, terrorism or may be natural in the shape of flood, earth-quick, tsunamis, & droughts etc. Through this study we have explore the use of supply chain management techniques and proposed how can overcome the barriers encountered by the logisticians during the humanitarian relief operations. Using grounded theory methodology and statistical analysis, the barriers is analyzed which is based on academic, organizational, and contemporary literature. Possible solutions to these barriers have been drawn from the available supply chain management literature. This work is different from others conventional studies because this study interacts the supply chain principles from different disciplines of nonprofit organizations to benefit humanitarian operations. It also serves to advance the body of knowledge so that future logisticians can build upon the concept. The result of the study has been puts forth a simple framework of supply chain management solutions with overcoming logistics difficulties during relief operations and it will explains why logisticians should consider this study into their use

Inventory Management Modeling With Markov Decision Process (Mdp) For Equitable Distribution Of Supplies Under Uncertainty

Food insecurity is defined as the situation where people are not able to access enough food at all times for an active, healthy life. The 2012 food security report stated that 49 million Americans including children lived in food insecure households. Many individuals suffering from food insecurity obtain assistance from governmental programs and nonprofit agencies. Food banks are one of many non-profit organizations assisting in the fight against hunger. They serve communities by distributing food to those in need through charitable agencies. Many of the food distributed by the food bank comes from donations. These donations are received from various sources in uncertain quantities at random points in time. Working with this type of uncertainty in supplies can be very challenging. This thesis aims at developing a decision making model that will assist food banks to distribute supplies equitably as well as measure their performance using the pounds per person in poverty indicator. This model will also assist them in managing their inventory levels in order to meet the demand of aid recipients with the random supplies (donations) to the food bank

Stochastic network models for logistics planning in disaster relief

Emergency logistics in disasters is fraught with planning and operational challenges, such as uncertaintyabout the exact nature and magnitude of the disaster, a lack of reliable information about the locationand needs of victims, possible random supplies and donations, precarious transport links, scarcity ofresources, and so on. This paper develops a new two-stage stochastic network flow model to help decidehow to rapidly supply humanitarian aid to victims of a disaster within this context. The model takesinto account practical characteristics that have been neglected by the literature so far, such as budgetallocation, fleet sizing of multiple types of vehicles, procurement, and varying lead times over a dynamicmultiperiod horizon. Attempting to improve demand fulfillment policy, we present some extensions ofthe model via state-of-art risk measures, such as semideviation and conditional value-at-risk. A simpletwo-phase heuristic to solve the problem within a reasonable amount of computing time is also suggested.Numerical tests based on the floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, show that the modelcan help plan and organise relief to provide good service levels in most scenarios, and how this dependson the type of disaster and resources. Moreover, we demonstrate that our heuristic performs well for realand random instances

Decision-making and operations in disasters: challenges and opportunities

Decision-making structures are commonly associated with the logistics challenges experienced during disaster operations. However, the alignment between the operational level and the decision-making structure is commonly overlooked. The purpose of this research is to provide an analysis of the fit of both levels and its impact on performance. The research is developed around a case study in Mexico. Through a review of the disaster management policy in the country, interviews, and secondary data, the article provides an analysis of the current decision-making structure, the logistics activities undertaken by authorities and the impact of the alignment between both components on logistics performance. The analysis suggests that several of the challenges commonly associated centralisation are actually rooted on its alignment with the operational level. Logistics performance is negatively affected by faulty assumptions, poorly planned procedures, inconsistent decision-making, and poorly designed structures. The case showed the need to align the operational level with a centralised perspective to increase responsiveness, flexibility and the interaction between different organisations. This article identifies the impact of the misalignment between the decision-making structure and the operational level on logistics performance, an area currently understudied. It moves from the current argument about the appropriate decision-making structure for disaster management to the identification of components to implement an efficient and effective disaster management system. Additionally, this paper provides recommendations for best practices in humanitarian logistics which are applicable to Mexico and other countries using a centralised decision-making approach