Modeling and analysis of humanitarian relief supply chains

Risk reduction and preparedness activities carried out before a disaster are of great importance for effective and successful disaster management. One of the activities that can be done in the disaster preparedness phase is the establishment of neighborhood disaster stations which contains perishable products such as food and health products. These stations may be useful in terms of meeting the urgent needs of a neighborhood after a disaster occurs until an organized humanitarian aid arrives to that neighborhood. On the other hand, considering that a disaster may occur years later, it becomes essential to replenish the perishable products reaching their expiration dates. In line with the discussions above, this study proposes multi-period location-routing models to determine routes for the replenishment of perishable products in neighborhood disaster stations and determine the locations of the warehouses that provides the products to these stations. In order to test the applicability of the proposed models in real-life instances, a case study regarding the Tepebaşı district of Eskişehir province is considered. Computational results, on one hand, showed the applicability of the proposed models in real-life instances, and on the other hand, bring several important managerial insights.