{"68902":{"#nid":"68902","#data":{"type":"news","title":"INFORMS: CARE Positions Disaster Relief with Promising Discipline of Humanitarian Logistics","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOperations research models developed by a team at the\nGeorgia Institute of Technology helped CARE International pick three locations\nworldwide to supply relief quickly to victims of earthquakes, floods, and other\nnatural disasters, according to a paper in a journal of the Institute for\nOperations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Pre-Positioning of Emergency Items for CARE\nInternational\u0022 is by Serhan Duran, currently at the Middle East Technical\nUniversity in Ankara Turkey, and by Marco A. Gutierrez and Pinar Keskinocak of\nthe H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia\nInstitute of Technology. It appears in a special issue of the INFORMS journal \u003Cem\u003EInterfaces\u003C\/em\u003E\nthat is dedicated to the new, growing field of humanitarian logistics, which\nrelies on industrial concepts like supply chain management to benefit the\npublic sector. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe special issue is edited by Ozlem Ergun, Pinar\nKeskinocak, and Julie Swann, who are directors of the Georgia Tech Center for\nHealth and Humanitarian Logistics. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EA podcast interview with Professors Keskinocak and Swann is\nat: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scienceofbetter.org\/podcast\/swann.html\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.scienceofbetter.org\/podcast\/swann.html\u003C\/a\u003E\nand at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scienceofbetter.org\/podcast\u0022\u003Ewww.scienceofbetter.org\/podcast\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The team\u0027s work not only gave us excellent\nrecommendations regarding locations, inventory levels, and an expansion strategy\nfor the network, but is also serving as the basis for funding proposals for the\nnetwork,\u0022 writes Rigoberto Giron, Associate Vice President, Strategic\nInitiatives and Supply Chain Management, CARE, in a post-script to the study.\n\u0022By pre-positioning we expect to reduce response time from weeks to 48-72\nhours, reduce procurement costs by buying in larger quantities, reduce freight\ncosts by using transportation resources more efficiently and improve\ncoordination with other responding organizations.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe models created by the team helped CARE International\nreview 12 suggested international locations for opening new CARE warehouses and\nfinalize three, in Dubai, Panama, and Cambodia. They also helped CARE determine\nthat, although more is better, the benefits of multiple relief-supply\nwarehouses declines after the number reaches three to four, thus helping CARE\nmake maximum use of its limited resources.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn their research, the authors considered two kinds of\ncapacity constraints: the number of warehouses to open and the inventory\namounts to keep throughout the pre-positioning network. They ran their model\nfor the option of opening between one and nine warehouses and for three levels\nof inventory \u2013 high, medium, and low. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EWith funding limited, they also helped make the critical\ndecision which warehouse location would be most valuable to open first. They\nrecommended that CARE open its first depot in the Middle East, expand to\nCentral America, and then to Southeast Asia. Given a gradual roll-out plan,\nthey were able to determine that once all three warehouses were operational,\nthe supplies should be divided 35% in Dubai, 15% in Central America, and 50% in\nCambodia.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIf CARE obtains the resources to open a fourth warehouse in\nAfrica and a fifth in Europe, the authors\u0027 sensitivity analysis shows that the\nrelief organizational will be at its highest possible state of readiness to\nrespond to unforeseen disasters anywhere in the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe authors were able to make recommendations by modeling\nthe frequency, location, and magnitude of future demand based on historical\ndata about earlier CARE relief operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EOne of the first applications of the research took place\nduring the 2010 Haitian earthquake. With a million water purification kits and\nother supplies at depots, CARE was able to rapidly deliver water purification\ntablets to victims of the earthquake from its Panama warehouse.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team\u0027s model is a mixed integer program that was run on\na 4 x 900 MHz processor using ILOG OPL Studio with the CPLEX solver.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout INFORMS\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Institute for Operations Research and the Management\nSciences (INFORMS\u00ae) is an international scientific society with 10,000 members,\nincluding Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to\nhelp improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS\nwork in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as\ndiverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, financial\nengineering, and telecommunications. INFORMS serves the scientific and\nprofessional needs of operations research analysts, experts in analytics,\nconsultants, scientists, students, educators, and managers, as well as their\ninstitutions, by publishing a variety of journals that describe the latest\nresearch in operations research. INFORMS Online (IOL) is at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.informs.org\/\u0022\u003Ewww.informs.org\u003C\/a\u003E. Further information about\noperations research can be found at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scienceofbetter.org\/\u0022\u003Ewww.scienceofbetter.org\u003C\/a\u003E.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOperations research models developed by a team at the\nGeorgia Institute of Technology helped CARE International pick three locations\nworldwide to supply relief quickly to victims of earthquakes, floods, and other\nnatural disasters, according to a paper in a journal of the Institute for\nOperations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27511","created_gmt":"2011-07-22 14:31:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:09:48","author":"Ashley Daniel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-07-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2011-07-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4773","name":"CARE"},{"id":"13672","name":"College of Engineering; H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Donald Ratliff; Supply Chain and Logistics Center; World Economic Forum"},{"id":"1240","name":"humanitarian logistics"},{"id":"6204","name":"INFORMS"},{"id":"13658","name":"Interfaces"},{"id":"1237","name":"Julie Swann"},{"id":"7993","name":"Marco A. Gutierrez"},{"id":"1238","name":"Ozlem Ergun"},{"id":"1239","name":"Pinar Keskinocak"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:barbara.christopher@isye.gatech.edu\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}