Emergency supply chain scheduling problem with multiple resources in disaster relief operations

Abstract

In emergency logistics, it is important to allocate available assets to operations effectively due to the resource scarcity. This paper considers a supply chain network which includes local and global suppliers of medical relief items, regional and central distribution centers, and many customer demand points. Either pre-positioned resources at distribution centers or new assembly operations at them can fulfill resources demands. Moreover, a capacitated multi-stage operations scheduling problem is presented, in which renewable (medical teams) as well as non-renewable resources (standard or customized medical kits) are required in an emergency supply chain. In addition, a new mixed-integer programming model is presented and solved for small-sized problems. Further, for solving large-sized problems, a particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed. Finally, the performance of the proposed solution method is evaluated, and some sensitivity analyses are conducted on the more important parameters.

KEYWORDS:

• Emergency supply chain
• scheduling
• disaster relief
• particle swarm optimization

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions which helped to improve the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Mohammad Mahdi Nasiri http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9813-1233

Ali Bozorgi-Amiri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1180-9572

Ali Rahbari http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4084-1555