Monday, June 22, 2015

Presenting on Supply Chain Networks for Disaster Relief in Greece

Hard to believe that, one week from today, I will be speaking at the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, that I co-organized with Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida and Professor Ilias Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University.

The paper that I will be presenting is on our lated research on disaster relief supply chain networks: A Mean-Variance Disaster Relief Supply Chain Network Model for Risk Reduction with Stochastic Link Costs, Time Targets, and Demand Uncertainty, Anna Nagurney and Ladimer S. Nagurney.

The paper goes further than our earlier paper,  An Integrated Disaster Relief Supply Chain Network Model with Time Targets and Demand Uncertainty, Anna Nagurney, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, in Regional Science Matters: Studies Dedicated to Walter Isard, P. Nijkamp, A. Rose, and K. Kourtit, Editors, Springer International Publishing Switzerland (2015), pp 287-318, which Amir will be presenting at the EURO Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in July.  In our new paper, the model that we construct is the first to integrate disaster preparedness and response in a supply chain network framework with a mean-variance (MV) approach for risk reduction under demand and cost uncertainty and time targets plus penalties for shortages and surpluses.

The MV approach to risk reduction dates to the work of the Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz (1952, 1959) and is still relevant in finance, in supply chains, as well as in disaster relief and humanitarian operations, where the focus, to-date, however,  has been on inventory management. Our new model handles both the pre-positioning of relief supplies, whether local or nonlocal, as well as the procurement (local or nonlocal), transport, and distribution of supplies post-disaster. In the paper, we provide numerical examples for an island nation and also a case study focusing on storms hitting Mexico.


The presentation can be downloaded here.

The program for the conference can be downloaded here.  I am very much looking forward to the exchange of ideas at what should be a very interesting, focused conference. Two of my former doctoral students, both of whom are very successful professors now, Dr.. Tina Wakolbinger and Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki, will be presenting at this conference. Also, it will be wonderful to see Dr.. Nurcu Balcik again, whose work with Dr. Benita Beamon, the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School get to read.

Many thanks to the University of Florida, Wilfrid Laurier University and the Isenberg School of Management for support! The Isenberg School has provided folders plus name tag holders and they have arrived in Greece,