Designing an integrated relief pre-positioning network with perishable commodities

Akbarpour, Mina; Torabi, Seyed Ali; Ghavamifar, Ali

Designing an integrated relief pre-positioning network with perishable commodities

Document Type : conference paper

Authors

Mina Akbarpour

Seyed Ali Torabi

Ali Ghavamifar

School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In this paper, a bi-objective model is proposed for designing a pre-positioning network of pharmaceutical supplies considering their limited shelf-life. The presented model aims to consider both cost efficiency and responsiveness by minimization of total cost and the maximum amount of unmet demand under uncertainties in demand and supply sides’ data. Moreover, for effective distribution of relief supplies in the post-disaster phase, multiple coverage levels are incorporated. The bi-objective model is solved by the well-known ε-constraint method and some numerical experiments are developed to explore the applicability of the presented model. The results indicate the impact of considering perishability of the pharmaceutical supplies as well as considering multiple coverage levels for satisfying demand on the total cost and responsiveness of the relief network.

Keywords

Pharmaceutical supplies

relief pre-positioning network

multiple coverage levels

perishability

Subjects