Event-Cloud Platform to Support Decision- Making in Emergency Management

The challenge of this paper is to underline the capability of an Event-Cloud Platform to support efficiently an emergency situation. We chose to focus on a nuclear crisis use case. The proposed approach consists in modeling the business processes of crisis response on the one hand, and in supporting the orchestration and execution of these processes by using an Event-Cloud Platform on the other hand. This paper shows how the use of Event-Cloud techniques can support crisis management stakeholders by automatizing non-value added tasks and by directing decision- makers on what really requires their capabilities of choice. If Event-Cloud technology is a very interesting and topical subject, very few research works have considered this to improve emergency management. This paper tries to fill this gap by considering and applying these technologies on a nuclear crisis use-case

Supporting group decision makers to locate temporary relief distribution centres after sudden-onset disasters: A case study of the 2015 Nepal earthquake

International audienceIn the humanitarian response, multiple decision-makers (DMs) need to collaborate in various problems, such as locating temporary relief distribution centres (RDCs). Several studies have argued that maximising demand coverage, reducing logistics costs and minimising response time are among the critical objectives when locating RDCs after a sudden-onset disaster. However, these objectives are often conflicting and the trade-offs can considerably complicate the situation for finding a consensus.To address the challenge and support the DMs, we suggest investigating the stability of non-dominated alternatives derived from a multi-objective model based on Monte Carlo Simulations. Our approach supports determining what trade-offs actually matter to facilitate discussions in the presence of multiple stakeholders. To validate our proposal, we extend a location-allocation model and apply our approach to an actual data-set from the 2015 Nepal earthquake response. Our analyses show that with the relative importance of covering demands, the trade-offs between logistics costs and response time affects the numbers and locations of RDCs considerably. We show through a small experiment that the outputs of our approach can effectively support group decision-making to develop relief plans in disasters response

Assessing Physical Internet potential for Humanitarian Supply Chains

Nowadays, Humanitarian Supply Chain stakes are changing drastically, implying a need for new methods and tools. One of the most promising evolution is definitively Physical Internet . The current research work investigates how to assess the potential benefits and limits of using the Physical Internet paradigm within Humanitarian Supply Chains. Practically, the proposal provides (i) a systems engineering-oriented framework and (ii) a set of specific modeling features. This contribution will allow assessing efficiently and accurately, impacts of Physical Internet in Humanitarian context. Finally, the paper develops avenues for further research based on the proposal

An Anticipative Effects-Based Approach (AEBA) for analyzing collaborative crisis management process

This paper aims at presenting an Anticipative Effects-Based Approach (AEBA) to evaluate the potential effects of a collaborative crisis management process response on the different elements concerned by the crisis evolution. This approach provides several concepts, model and reasoning mechanisms presented and illustrated in this paper. AEBA is currently developed within the French ISYCRI1 Project. It focuses on crisis occurring suddenly and unpredictably. Long time crisis such as famine, pandemic, enduring civilian wars, etc. are not taken into account

Enabling supply chain agility and resilience improvement: toward a methodolody and platform

International audienceOur research ambition is to provide businesses with a methodology and platform able to guide them towards the improvement of their logistics network in terms of agility and resilience, and so of their overall supply chains performances. To minimize the efforts that businesses will have to provide, our methodology will enable the platform to automate the recommendations for logistics network performance improvements in terms of agility and resilience. To fulfil this ambition, we are combining two research projects: the Physical Internet Initiative and the IO-Suite project

Making Strategic Supply Chain Capacity Planning more Dynamic to cope with Hyperconnected and Uncertain Environments

Public and private organizations cope with a lot of uncertainties when planning the future of their supply chains. Additionally, the network of stakeholders is now intensely interconnected and dynamic, revealing new collaboration opportunities at a tremendous pace. In such a context, organizations must rethink most of their supply chain planning decision support systems. This is the case regarding strategic supply chain capacity planning systems that should ensure that supply chains will have enough resources to profitably produce and deliver products on time, whatever hazards and disruptions. Unfortunately, most of the existing systems are unable to consider satisfactorily this new deal. To solve this issue, this paper develops a decision support system designed for making strategic supply chain capacity planning more dynamic to cope with hyperconnected and uncertain environments. To validate this decision support system, two industrial experiments have been conducted with two European pharmaceuticals and cosmetics companies

Towards a crisis performance-measurement system

International audienceDuring a crisis, the main goal for decision-makers consists in restoring a stabilised nominal mode. The stakeholders face considerable pressure and drastic constraints in response time and coordination. This study proposes a method to support these stakeholders in making responsive and accurate decisions while carrying out a performance evaluation of the activities that run during the crisis-response process. This method is composed of four steps: (1) characterisation of the crisis-response system, (2) selection of system components to evaluate in priority, (3) determination of performance dimensions to consider and (4) creation of indicators. Currently, performance evaluation is only used subsequent to a crisis, due to difficulties in gathering and aggregating information into trustable performance indicators. This paper proposes a method to obtain a relevant and dynamic decision-support system. Decision-makers will use it to resolve the crisis based on performance evaluation, in addition to the essential experience they undergo. A case study of crisis management within the French Red Cross non-governmental organisation is developed, through a Web-based prototype, in order to explain how performance indicators can both support crisis-response management and improve the collaboration of stakeholders

Impact of the key determinants of a distributed planning process on the performance of a supply chain

International audienceIn today's highly competitive world, firms try to maximize value for their customers and other stakeholders through the effective management of their supply chains. Given that performance measurement considerably affects the actions of firms' decision makers, it is increasingly important to understand the key factors that can significantly affect the performance of the supply chain. Using analytical models and simulations, this article aims to identify and analyse the key determinants (both financial and nonfinancial) of a distributed planning process that affect the performance of the supply chain. The identified determinants are discussed with respect to three performance dimensions: efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness. Our results show that different combinations of the determining factors have varying positive or negative effects on these three performance dimensions

Managing in-country transportation risks in humanitarian supply chains by logistics service providers: Insights from the 2015 Nepal earthquake

Humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) play a central role in effective and efficient disaster relief operations. Transportation has a critical share in HSCs and managing its risks helps to avoid further disruptions in relief operations. However, there is no common approach to or culture of risk management that its applicability has been studied through recent cases. This paper incorporates an empirical research design and makes a threefold contribution: first, it identifies in-country transportation risks during Nepal response. Second, we evaluate afore identified risks through an expert driven risk assessment grid. Third, we use our field data to study how some humanitarian organizations in Nepal response used logistics service providers for managing moderate- and high-level transportation risks. In this paper, we use both qualitative and quantitative methods. Our qualitative analysis reveals that some of the most important in-country transportation risks were delivery delays; market fluctuations; insufficient capacity; loss of cargo; cargo decay; unreliable information; and ethical concerns. Our quantitative work shows that while participants categorized the first three risks as high-level, the rest were ranked as moderate-level. More investigation in our field data indicates that using logistics service providers (LSPs) helped humanitarians significantly to manage afore in-country transportation risks during Nepal response. It also improved overall HSC performance with respect to flexibility, effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness. While this finding empirically confirms the “tools” role of LSPs for managing in-country transportation risks in response, it implies another role for LSPs; “contributors” to performance improvements.acceptedVersionnivå