Posters

Poster sessions were held during the conference and below is the list of posters that were accepted. Click on the title of a poster to jump to its abstract. Posters

Poster Listing

A Framework to Identify Interdependencies among Infrastructures: Capability-driven and Demand-driven Dependency

Jukrin Moon (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Taesik Lee (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

This study presents a framework to identify interdependencies among critical infrastructures. Failures in one infrastructure can cause unanticipated disruptions in others causing a cascade, and the degree and extent of damage could far exceed the initial prediction. As infrastructures of a modern society have become increasingly interdependent, it is becoming more common to face these unanticipated cascading failures, so-called rare disasters. In this study, an infrastructure is viewed as a system that provides functions to meet demands from a society using its capability. From this perspective, we propose two types of infrastructure dependency: 1) dependency associated with the degradation of its capability, and 2) dependency related to the increase in demand it has to fulfill. We named them as capability-driven dependency and demand-driven dependency, respectively. The definition and the classification of dependencies found in the previous literatures tended to center around only one of these two dependencies, capability-driven dependency. Disasters, however, often emerge as a consequence of both dependencies, so demand-driven dependency must be taken into account in the process of modeling infrastructure networks. We thus attempt to outline a framework for modeling interdependencies among infrastructures which incorporates the demand-driven dependency.
With these two types of dependency, we expect that it allows us to capture a wide range of failure propagations among critical infrastructures, and to provide an effective frame to explain cascading disasters that are not easily identified. For an illustration purpose, we applied our framework to real cases such as the fuel shortage in the aftermath of super storm Sandy. These case studies show that demand-driven dependencies actually played a critical role in failure propagations and were much more difficult to identify than capability-driven dependencies. Our framework offers a novel framework to construct comprehensive infrastructure interdependency networks.

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An Alternative to Prepositioning of Inventory

Nathan Kunz (), Gerald Reiner ()

Through a dynamic simulation model (system dynamics), we compare two disaster preparedness scenarios; (1) prepositioning of inventory in country prior to a disaster, and (2) investing in disaster management capabilities before a disaster. Disaster management capabilities (see Van Wassenhove, 2006) are capabilities which are built up by the relief organization before a disaster in order to be better prepared for responding to disaster. In our example illustrating the importation process of Plumpy'Nut Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, such investments in capabilities may consist of training staff to handle customs clearance procedures in a specific country, harmonizing exportation procedures with the country’s import regulations, or negotiating customs agreements with the government before a disaster happens.
Through our model, we compare the impact of customs clearance activities on delivery lead time in both preparedness scenarios. We also analyse the cost reduction potential of investing in capabilities compared to prepositioning inventory.
We find that prepositioning inventory in country leads to the best results in terms of lead time, as the beneficiaries’ initial demand is satisfied rapidly from the in-country inventory. However, this scenario generates high costs, which most donors are not willing to cover. Investing in disaster management capabilities therefore represents an interesting alternative, as similar results can be achieved in terms of lead time reduction (-67% compared to no preparedness), while generating much lower costs than in the inventory prepositioning scenario.
Based on our findings, relief organizations and donors are encouraged to invest in disaster management capabilities rather than prepositioning inventory, especially when facing limited funding. We also encourage governments and relief organizations to cooperate when designing these preparedness plans in order to avoid duplication of disaster preparedness efforts.

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CARE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Save the Children apply 21st century technology and traditional collaboration techniques to their Supply Chain Operations.

Melis Jones (Aidmatrix Foundation, Executive Vice President)

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Casualty Response during Catastrophic Radiological Incidents

Aakil Caunhye (Nanyang Technological University), Xiaofeng Nie (Nanyang Technological University), Mingzhe Li (Fukuoka University)

A radiological incident is an event whereby the release of radioactive material leads to significant consequences to people, the environment, and facilities. It has the potential of being catastrophic. We seek to analyze casualty response to such an event by addressing issues such as the creation of surge capacity, the fair and equitable treatment of casualties, and the incorporation of self-evacuees in planning. We develop a location and allocation model that locates alternative care facilities (ACFs) and considers triage and the movement of self-evacuees in devising a casualty allocation plan for catastrophic radiological events. The model minimizes the total weighted transportation time of casualties and uses triage results to tactically prioritize casualties, while considering resource limitations. We apply the model to the study of a radiological dispersal device scenario in a densely populated region of Los Angeles, California. From the optimal plan of our case study, we observe the importance of ACFs in adding surge capacity and improving efficiency. In addition, with sensitivity analyses on the budget of type I ACFs and on nonspecialized hospital triage capacities, we come up with three rules of thumb for casualty response planning. Our model aims to help central planners respond effectively to radiological incidents and better understand the response supply chain. In addition, it can help avert deaths and reduce suffering, especially in the current climate, where the increasing threat of terrorism is raising concerns over the next radiological attack being more in the offing than ever.

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Disaster Risks and Impacts on Supply Chains - the Vulnerability of Supply Chains to Thai Floods in 2011 and Future Research Questions for Resilient Supply Chains-

Masahiko Justin Haraguchi (Columbia University), Upmanu Lall (Columbia University)

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Grain Public Supply: How India Is Providing Food Security

Mohita Gangwar Sharma (FORE School of Management), Sachinder Mohan Sharma (National University of Singapore)

In India, Almost 7% or roughly 16-17 million tons of grain go waste each year. While on the one hand the domestic policy environment contributed significantly to long term grain production it also led to the current situation of large market surpluses alongside persistent food access problem This can be attributed to loss in Storage or Transit. The supply chain stakeholders like farmers, consumers, FCI, Indian Railways, Road Transporters, traders and wholesalers are highly fragmented. This tells how India has tried to combat this and provide food security.

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Logistics in Action

Ali Baba Syed (International Rescue Committee)

Efficiency in logistics is a key success factor because it ensures the proper flow of goods and services in a complex supply chain. Considering the need to quickly prepare humanitarian operations in response to a disaster.
Natural events can be characterized as natural disasters when they occur in populated areas, causing the destruction of local infrastructure and population leading to a state of deprivation and suffering. In the last three decades, the occurrence of natural disasters has increased significantly.

Humanitarian operations are initiated with the intent to provide rapid assistance to victims in different ways, such as salvaging those who are wounded and/or stranded, collecting and disposing corpses, resource allocation, provision of food aid, shelter and medical care, and restoring access to remote locations. In humanitarian actions, delays in delivery or relief can cost lives. Therefore, efficiency in logistics is a key success factor, because it ensures the smooth flow of goods and services in a complex supply chain.
Logistics plays a key role in disaster response operations; it serves as a link between disaster preparedness and response, between procurement and distribution, and between headquarters and the field, and is crucial to the effectiveness and responsiveness to major humanitarian programs such as health, food, shelter, water and sanitation.

In developing countries like Pakistan, humanitarian logistics comes with more actions and responsibilities and a minor act can change the entire shape of the operation. when it comes in the Security, Distribution

With a good logistics system ,effective communications, capacity building and a great team management, we can build a confidence of the local community while making them understand that we are here for them, we are part of them, including suppliers, transporters, and warehouse owners and other community members involved directly or indirectly to the success of the operation.

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Optimal Deployment of Emergency Supply Inventory under a Humanitarian Relief Objective

Fang Liu (Nanyang Technological University), Pengfei Guo (the Hong Kong Polytechnic University), Yulan Wang (the Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

This paper examines the optimal pre-positioning of emergency supply inventory (ESI) with the objective of minimizing the total expected loss of life among disaster victims. We consider a general network of disaster locations at which the humanitarian-relief central planner can pre-position the ESI. The transshipment of ESI between any two disaster locations incurs a positive transportation lead
time. The victims’ demand for ESI at each disaster location follows a general stochastic process. We first characterize the dynamics of the disaster relief system and derive the expected victim life loss function. We then build a stochastic programming model to solve for the optimal allocation of the ESI. We show that this optimization
problem is convex. Based on this structural result, we develop two algorithms that can readily find the optimal decisions. Interestingly, when the total available ESI is limited, it might be optimal to stock more ESI at locations with a smaller disaster magnitude.

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Performance Measurement of Social Welfare Supply Chain: Clothing for Dignity

Mohita Gangwar Sharma (FORE School of Management)

Social Welfare Supply Chains happen to be a distinctive type of Humanitarian Supply Chain. This study, suggests the case of a social welfare development supply chain which can be considered as a modification to the concept of social welfare supply chain. The objective of this Indian organization is to bridge the cloth gap by collecting and then redistributing the clothes in return of developmental activities. To understand the efficacy and efficiency of the system, performance measurement and system dynamics has been used.

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