Robust reliable humanitarian relief network design: an integration of shelter and supply facility location

Abstract

The human societies are threatened by natural disasters. Thus, preparedness and response planning is necessary to eliminate or mitigate their negative effects. Relief network design plays an important role in the efficient response to the affected people. This paper addresses the problem of relief logistics network design under interval uncertainty and the risk of facility disruption. A mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed (1) to consider distribution center (DC) disruption (2) to support the disrupted DC by backup plan (3) to take in to the account both supply and evacuation issues (4) and finally, to mitigate disruption impact by investment. Moreover, robust optimization methodology is applied to hedge against uncertain environments. We conduct computational experiments by using generated instances and a real-world case to perform sensitivity analysis and provide managerial insights. The results show that the total cost of relief network increases by increasing the conservatism level. Moreover, the result show that the total cost of the network can be decrease by reducing the interval of uncertain parameters. As a result, providing more information and better estimation about uncertain parameters can reduce network costs. Disruption probability effect is also investigated and the result indicates that the network tries to establish more reliable facilities as the disruption probability increases. To demonstrate superiority of reliable network described in this paper over the classic network, a Monte Carlo procedure is used to compare two networks and results confirmed superiority of reliable network.