Humanitarian Logistics or The Use of Quantitative Methods in Humanitarian Security

Presentation by Signe Hermann, September 2007

Elsa Jooste

Elza Kekana

Signe Hermann

Outline

• Background

• Methods in use

• Problems with application of quantitative methods in Humanitarian Security

• Key Players

• Conclusion

Background

• The number of annual disasters have tripled since 1970

• We define disasters as natural or man-made

• Natural disasters include hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, floods, droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruption, epidemics, famine and food insecurity

• Man-made disasters include war, civil war, violent conflicts, population mass movement, displaced people, pollution or technological disasters

Background (continued)• The International Federation of Red Cross Societies defines Humanitarian Security

as “all those situations in which the survival, the welfare, the health, or the fundamental rights and liberties of people, whether entire populations or particular social groups, are threatened”

• Includes all those situations mentioned on the previous slide

• Also normalisation of a country after a violent conflict, environmental problems with the related risks involved and security problems which arise in everyday life, such as transportation security

• The Fritz Institute define Humanitarian Logistics as “the processes and systems involved in mobilizing people, resources, skills and knowledge to help vulnerable people affected by natural disasters and complex emergencies. It encompasses a range of activities, including procurement, transport, tracking, customs clearance, local transportation, warehousing and last mile delivery”.

Methods in Use

• Altay and Green (European Journal of Operational Research, 2006) did a literature survey on the operations research work that has already been done in the disaster operations management arena.

• Mathematical programming, including heuristic methods, was used most often.

• Probability theory and statistics was used second most frequently, while simulation appeared third on their list.

• In addition the authors discovered articles relating to decision theory, multi-attribute utility theory and queuing theory. The authors found system dynamics, constraint programming and soft OR techniques to be the techniques less frequently used.

Methods in Use (continued)

• G Gallo and C Sodini (Operations Research and Conflict Prevention, 2004) conducted research on the use of operations research in the area of conflict prevention

• Quantitative models used in conflict prevention can be classified into analytical models and soft operations research

• The analytical models’ main goal is to model the effects of conflict, for example where it originated and the behaviour related to it

• Soft operations research focuses more on a framework which can be applied to any type of conflict situation

Methods in Use (continued)• Logistics and Supply Chain Management is used by The Fritz Institute, San Francisco, USA.

Quantitative methods are used in Humanitarian Logistics to analyse situations, data and improve performance of the relief chain.

• BM Beamon (proceedings from 34th International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering, 2004) looks at Humanitarian Relief Chain, and defines the following differences between this and ordinary supply chain management:

• a) Zero lead time, due to the unpredictability of disasters;

• b) High risk due to involvement of a usually large number of human lives and infrastructure;

• c) Incomplete or non-existent information;

• d) No effective performance measurement system in place;

• e) Participating humanitarian relief organizations that do not coordinate activities; and

• f) Differing availability of technology from situation to situation.

• I would add g) Possibility of hostile groups interfering with supply chains

• She also mentions local politics and influx of humanitarian staff as things that could further complicate matters

Methods in Use (continued)

• L Ozdamar et al. developed a network flow model to implement on logistics planning in emergency situations. The model addresses the transportation problem that occurs in the event of natural disasters. Problems occur due to the time-aspect involved in rescue efforts as well as the fact that supply is available only in limited quantities.

• The World Food Programme is the largest humanitarian agency committed to assist in the struggle against global hunger and poverty. Due to the transport difficulties in some instances, they have to transport food via air. De Angelis et al. developed a multi-period routing and scheduling model for the cargo planes in Angola.

• Choucri and North developed a system dynamics model that showed the effects of conflict on sustainable development such as resources and technology. They made 2 functions to estimate lateral pressure and internal tension: , and , where f is an increasing function, T is available technology, P is population, and R is resources

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Methods in Use (continued)• W Fawcett and C S Oliveira published an article that presents a new suggestion on the

problem of casualty treatment following an earthquake. They developed simulation model for the first 4 – 5 days after the earthquake. The model assigns untreated casualties to zones where they can receive treatment using the following formula:

• A Akkihal did a study on inventory pre-positioning for humanitarian logistics. Four million people are left homeless annually due to the effects of natural disasters. This leads to decreased public health and an increase in mortality. Akkihal designed a model to determine positions for facilities (assumed to be airports) where these goods could be stored and used in the event of a disaster. The quantitative techniques used by Akkihal were mixed-integer linear programming with geometric optimization. , S.t. , ,

• J B Sheu et al. presented a fuzzy-optimization (linear programming with fuzzy variables) model to solve the problem of relief distribution and minimise the number of casualties. The article also presents a fuzzy vehicle routing model.

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Problems with Application• First of all an information infrastructure is required. This consists of computer

hardware, general-purpose software, networks and communication facilities (including the internet and intranets), databases and information management personnel.

• The information system must provide all the necessary data to manage a disaster or crisis. This implicates:

• 1) there has to be access to the right data needed specifically for that crisis;

• 2) the data must furthermore have been processed in order to be in the right format at the right time; and

• 3) correctly disseminated to the right people involved with crises management.

Problems with Application (continued)

• L Gustavsson wrote an article on this matter (Humanitarian Logistics: Context and Challenges), in which he points out that some of the problems are:

• NGO’s play an all-important role in disaster management, but the role of logistics, supply chain management and integrated systems support are greatly underestimated by NGO’s

• No global standard of data (from previous experiences), makes it difficult for NGO’s to share information and learn from each other

• Communications systems form a critical part of humanitarian operations, but are usually regarded as unimportant by NGO’s

• NGO’s often use antiquated recording systems due to lack of investment, because of dependency on grants – some of them still keep paper records

• This also means that NGO’s often lack the adequate equipment to introduce more modern methods

• Big labour turnover due to burnout, this is often caused by having too many people to attend to and inadequate means to do so with

Problems with Application (continued)

• NGO’s often see corporations as “opposition” and find it hard to accept training from them, making a passing-on of expertise more difficult

• There are no concerted evaluation systems in place and every NGO does things in its own way, making cooperation and coordination between NGO’s difficult

• Often, aid workers are not adequately trained

• Because of the big volunteer turnover, skills gained “in the field” are frequently not passed on, so the NGO must start almost from scratch every time

• Monitoring and evaluating underestimated by many NGO’s

• Corporations are often not interested in this kind of research because there isn’t a lot of money to be made from it, though they might have the expertise and equipment in place to gain important results

• Finally, the area of humanitarian logistics is very new, and though the necessary methods might exist, there’s very little research done into applying them to this particular field

Key Players• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR);

• World Health Organization (WHO);

• UN Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC);

• Humanitarian Security Unit, European Commission;

• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI);

• Emergency Response and Disaster Mitigation, World Vision International;

• Fritz Institute, San Francisco, USA;

• Humanitarian Information Unit, US Department of State;

• INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France;

• Industrial Engineering, University of Washington, USA;

• Dipartimento di Informatica, University of Pisa, Italy;

• Engineers without Borders;

• Centre of Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CDMHA), Florida, USA; and

• National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC), South Africa.

Conclusions• There are several suggestions in literature for further application of operations research methods and

quantitative models to the humanitarian assistance arena

• Statistical analysis of data has been used most frequently in the past. Most new models are developed in the arena of linear programming and network flow models

• There is a definite lack of literature in this field! Areas for example, the “last mile” of a relief chain, better coordination between the agencies involved and methods to overcome the lack of technology and power in disaster situations, need attention

• The use of heuristic methods, simulation and other quantitative techniques could also be further explored

• Furthermore, it might be useful to study more operations research models with regards to, for example transport, location or vehicle routing, as many of these models are concerned with the probability of a “breakdown” within the transport network and humanitarian work is subject to much uncertainty on the transport routes

Thank you!

• More research is definitely needed!

• Disasters disrupt people’s lives and livelihoods, break down infrastructure and set back development of countries

• All research shows improvements of up to 50 % in response time, effectiveness of relief efforts and disaster management where quantitative methods are applied

Questions?