I have been busy co-organizing the 2nd International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters with my great colleagues, Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida and Professor Ilias Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University.
I've also been hard at work finishing up our paper for this conference, which takes place in Kalamata, Greece, at the end of June, and grading the fascinating project papers of the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class.
Nice when your research is synergistic with your teaching!
The conference website now contains the program (to-date) with confirmed speakers from many countries.
I have been completely engrossed in writing this paper, given the events in Nepal, post the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck in April. One wants to help in any way possible and we have given a financial donation and, as as academics, we can certainly help through our research.
The title of the paper that I will be presenting at the conference is: "A Mean-Variance Disaster Relief Supply Chain Network Model for Risk
Reduction with Stochastic Link Costs, Time Targets, and Demand
Uncertainty."
This paper builds upon our earlier work in supply chain risk reduction (but in a corporate setting): Risk Reduction and Cost Synergy in Mergers and Acquisitions via Supply Chain Network Integration, Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, Journal of Financial Decision Making 7(2): (2011) pp 1-18, and our 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.
Disaster relief is truly about time and models must incorporate the critical time dimension as ours do. For example, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has identified
key benchmarks to response and recovery, which emphasize time and they are:
to meet the survivors’ initial demands within 72 hours, to restore basic
community functionality within 60 days, and to return to as normal of a
situation within 5 years. Timely and efficient delivery of relief
supplies to the affected population not only decreases the fatality rate
but may also prevent chaos.
There can be delays on any of the links in a disaster relief supply chain network and The New York Times on Monday, in an article by Gardiner Harris, "Nepal's Bureaucracy Blamed as Quake Relief Supplies Pile Up," notes that: Relief supplies for earthquake victims have been piling up at the
airport and in warehouses here because of bureaucratic interference by
Nepalese authorities who insist that standard customs inspections and
other procedures be followed, even in an emergency, officials with
Western governments and aid organizations said on Sunday.
The article continues with: The bottleneck was the fact that the bureaucratic procedures were just
so heavy,” Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations resident coordinator,
said in an interview. “So many layers of government and so many
departments involved, so many different line ministries involved. We
don’t need goods sitting in Kathmandu warehouses. We don’t need goods
sitting at the airport. We need them up in the affected areas.
We do the following in our paper: We develop a mean-variance disaster relief supply chain network model with stochastic link costs and time targets for delivery of the relief supplies at the demand points, under demand uncertainty. The humanitarian organization seeks to minimize its expected total operational costs and the total risk in operations with an individual weight assigned to its valuation of the risk, as well as the minimization of expected costs of shortages and surpluses and tardiness penalties associated with the target time goals at the demand points.
The risk is captured through the variance of the total operational costs, which is relevant to the reporting of the proper use of funds to stakeholders, including donors. The time goal targets associated with the demand points enable prioritization as to the timely delivery of relief supplies. The framework 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. The time element is captured through link time completion functions as the relief supplies progress along paths in the supply chain network. Each path consists of a series of directed links, from the origin node, which represents the humanitarian organization, to the destination nodes, which are the demand points for the relief supplies.
We propose an algorithm, which yields closed form expressions for the variables at each iteration, and demonstrate the efficacy of the framework through a series of illustrative numerical examples, in which trade-offs between local versus nonlocal procurement, post- and pre-disaster, are investigated. The numerical examples include a case study on hurricanes hitting Mexico.
UMass Amherst has a nice release on this conference and the University of Florida had this writeup posted a while back.
I look forward to presenting our paper at the International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters. The topic is certainly so relevant and even NSF just released a big press release on 6 projects that it has funded, jointly with Japan, on Big Data and disaster response.
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Would Proper Risk Assessment and Management Have Minimized the Damage to Japan?
The New York Times in a provocative article is raising the question of whether attention to risk assessment for nuclear power plants in Japan might have reduced the scale of the damage from the triple earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster. The article even highlights that Japanese engineers focused on deterministic as opposed to probabilistic approaches in determining the safety of the associated engineering structures. According to the article, over the decades, preparedness against tsunamis never became a priority for Japan’s power companies or nuclear regulators. They were perhaps lulled, experts said, by the fact that no tsunami (itself a Japanese word) had struck a nuclear plant until two weeks ago. Even though tsunami simulations offered new ways to assess the risks of tsunamis, plant operators made few changes at their aging facilities, and nuclear regulators did not press them.
Also, engineers took a similar approach with earthquakes. According to Masaru Kobayashi, an expert on quake resistance at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan’s nuclear regulator, "When it came to designing the Fukushima plant, official records dating from 1600 showed that the strongest earthquakes off the coast of present-day Fukushima Prefecture had registered between magnitude 7.0 and 8.0." We all know that the earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, has now been upgraded from an 8.9 earthquake to a 9.0 one.
The Times article stated: For whatever reasons — whether cultural, historical or simply financial — Japanese engineers working on nuclear plants continued to predict what they believed were maximum earthquakes based on records. Those methods, however, did not take into account serious uncertainties such as faults that had not been discovered or earthquakes that were gigantic but rare, said Greg Hardy, a US-based structural engineer.
Indeed, in the West, risk management and assessment has become a focus not only of engineering studies and analyses but also a critical component of business decision-making. Drawn from techniques in finance, probability, and, I would add, optimization and decision-making under uncertainty, risk management has been integrated with design and analysis with a notable body of literature now in existence especially in the area of global supply chains (clearly also impacted by the Japanese set of disasters).
As a faculty member in the Department of Finance and Operations Management at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst, I have been researching, along with my students and associated colleagues, risk management in different network systems from transportation and logistic ones to economic and financial ones. Our research on the integration of risk management and decision-making under uncertainty with complex networks began over half a decade ago and has yielded publications such as:
Supply Chain Networks, Electronic Commerce, and Supply Side and Demand Side Risk
Anna Nagurney, Jose Cruz, June Dong, and Ding Zhang, European Journal of Operational Research 26: (2005) pp 120-142.
Multitiered Supply Chain Networks: Multicriteria Decision–Making under Uncertainty
June Dong, Ding Zhang, Hong Yan, and Anna Nagurney, Annals of Operations Research 135: (2005) pp 155-178.
Anna Nagurney and Dmytro Matsypura, Transportation Research E 41: (2005) pp 585-612.
Financial Networks with Intermediation: Risk Management with Variable Weights
Anna Nagurney and Ke Ke, European Journal of Operational Research 172: (2006) pp 40-63.
Modeling of Supply Chain Risk Under Disruptions with Performance Measurement and Robustness Analysis
Qiang Qiang, Anna Nagurney, and June Dong, in Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability: Tools and Methods for Supply Chain Decision Makers, T. Wu and J. Blackhurst, Editors, Springer, Berlin, Germany (2009) pp 91-111.
Supply Chain Outsourcing Under Exchange Rate Risk and Competition
Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, Omega 39: (2011) pp 539-549.
Risk Reduction and Cost Synergy in Mergers and Acquisitions via Supply Chain Network Integration
Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, to appear in the Journal of Financial Decision Making.
Supply Chain Network Design for Critical Needs with Outsourcing
Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, and Qiang Qiang, Papers in Regional Science 90: (2011) pp 123-142.
Only with the right methodological and analytical tools can we assess risk and prepare appropriately for emergencies and disasters!
Also, engineers took a similar approach with earthquakes. According to Masaru Kobayashi, an expert on quake resistance at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan’s nuclear regulator, "When it came to designing the Fukushima plant, official records dating from 1600 showed that the strongest earthquakes off the coast of present-day Fukushima Prefecture had registered between magnitude 7.0 and 8.0." We all know that the earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, has now been upgraded from an 8.9 earthquake to a 9.0 one.
The Times article stated: For whatever reasons — whether cultural, historical or simply financial — Japanese engineers working on nuclear plants continued to predict what they believed were maximum earthquakes based on records. Those methods, however, did not take into account serious uncertainties such as faults that had not been discovered or earthquakes that were gigantic but rare, said Greg Hardy, a US-based structural engineer.
Indeed, in the West, risk management and assessment has become a focus not only of engineering studies and analyses but also a critical component of business decision-making. Drawn from techniques in finance, probability, and, I would add, optimization and decision-making under uncertainty, risk management has been integrated with design and analysis with a notable body of literature now in existence especially in the area of global supply chains (clearly also impacted by the Japanese set of disasters).
As a faculty member in the Department of Finance and Operations Management at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst, I have been researching, along with my students and associated colleagues, risk management in different network systems from transportation and logistic ones to economic and financial ones. Our research on the integration of risk management and decision-making under uncertainty with complex networks began over half a decade ago and has yielded publications such as:
Supply Chain Networks, Electronic Commerce, and Supply Side and Demand Side Risk
Anna Nagurney, Jose Cruz, June Dong, and Ding Zhang, European Journal of Operational Research 26: (2005) pp 120-142.
Multitiered Supply Chain Networks: Multicriteria Decision–Making under Uncertainty
June Dong, Ding Zhang, Hong Yan, and Anna Nagurney, Annals of Operations Research 135: (2005) pp 155-178.
Global Supply Chain Network Dynamics with Multicriteria Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty
Anna Nagurney and Dmytro Matsypura, Transportation Research E 41: (2005) pp 585-612.
Financial Networks with Intermediation: Risk Management with Variable Weights
Anna Nagurney and Ke Ke, European Journal of Operational Research 172: (2006) pp 40-63.
Modeling of Supply Chain Risk Under Disruptions with Performance Measurement and Robustness Analysis
Qiang Qiang, Anna Nagurney, and June Dong, in Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability: Tools and Methods for Supply Chain Decision Makers, T. Wu and J. Blackhurst, Editors, Springer, Berlin, Germany (2009) pp 91-111.
Supply Chain Outsourcing Under Exchange Rate Risk and Competition
Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, Omega 39: (2011) pp 539-549.
Risk Reduction and Cost Synergy in Mergers and Acquisitions via Supply Chain Network Integration
Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, to appear in the Journal of Financial Decision Making.
Supply Chain Network Design for Critical Needs with Outsourcing
Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, and Qiang Qiang, Papers in Regional Science 90: (2011) pp 123-142.
Only with the right methodological and analytical tools can we assess risk and prepare appropriately for emergencies and disasters!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Near-Real-Time Map of Japan's Earthquake and Aftershocks
Researchers at Texas Tech's Center for Geospatial Technologies have developed what is a near-real-time map of the aftershocks occurring globally following the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan Friday.
According to Reuters: Kevin Mulligan, the Director of the Center, said the map was developed since there was a lack of new information presented on major news outlets. The map connects to near-real-time remote feeds from the United States Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Tsunami Warning Center.
The map was constructed using Arc GIS and, according to Mulligan: "This map is a dynamic map surface that shows the distribution of recent earthquakes from a USGS live remote feed." It also has information about earlier earthquakes in the general area of Japan and allows you to view the information via different displays (topographic, street view, and others).
The map is very informative and can be accessed here.
We were given the link by a fellow Brown University grad and note that some of the best reporting regarding the evolving situation of the explosion at the nuclear power plant in northern Japan that was not cooled down sufficiently because of a system cooling failure post the earthquake is being done by Martin Fackler and Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times. Coincidentally, Matt is another Brown University grad. Their article on the Explosion Rocks Japan Nuclear Plant After Quake is a must-read. Being of Ukrainian heritage, I pray that the Japanese do not experience the same catastrophe as we did in Chernobyl. The Japanese have suffered enough.
According to Reuters: Kevin Mulligan, the Director of the Center, said the map was developed since there was a lack of new information presented on major news outlets. The map connects to near-real-time remote feeds from the United States Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Tsunami Warning Center.
The map was constructed using Arc GIS and, according to Mulligan: "This map is a dynamic map surface that shows the distribution of recent earthquakes from a USGS live remote feed." It also has information about earlier earthquakes in the general area of Japan and allows you to view the information via different displays (topographic, street view, and others).
The map is very informative and can be accessed here.
We were given the link by a fellow Brown University grad and note that some of the best reporting regarding the evolving situation of the explosion at the nuclear power plant in northern Japan that was not cooled down sufficiently because of a system cooling failure post the earthquake is being done by Martin Fackler and Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times. Coincidentally, Matt is another Brown University grad. Their article on the Explosion Rocks Japan Nuclear Plant After Quake is a must-read. Being of Ukrainian heritage, I pray that the Japanese do not experience the same catastrophe as we did in Chernobyl. The Japanese have suffered enough.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Supply Chain Disruptions Post the Japanese Earthquake and the Tsunami
The devastation in Japan post the 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami is severe (although it seems, for the most part, that Hawaii and the western part of the US have been spared).
Companies with operations in Japan met post the earthquake to assess the damage. According to The New York Times, In the immediate aftermath, most companies evacuated and closed plants. Some injuries and some damage to factories have been reported, but the unknown for many operations could be the effect on supply chain operations and on the ability to receive parts and ship finished goods.
Cargo shippers reported that major Japanese ports were closed, though the shutdowns may be precautionary. The country’s major seaports, most of them south of Tokyo, play a crucial role in Japan’s export-driven economy. Japanese exports — chiefly automobiles, machinery and manufactured goods — rose by almost 25 percent in 2010, the first increase in three years, and a lengthy shutdown could create costly delays up and down the global supply chain. Several airports, including Tokyo’s Narita, had been closed.
Recently, Dr. Patrick Qiang and I revised our paper, "A Bi-Criteria Measure to Assess Supply Chain Network Performance for Critical Needs Under Capacity and Demand Disruptions ," which we had submitted to a special issue of a transportation journal on Network Vulnerability. The paper provides a model for supply chain disruptions in which capacities on various links from production to storage and transportation are affected due to disruptions (all of which is happening now post the disaster in Japan). The objective is to minimize the total network costs, which are generalized costs that may include the monetary, risk, time, and social costs.
In this paper, we consider two different cases of disruption scenarios. In the first case, we assume that the impacts of the disruptions are not as severe and, although there are capacity reductions, the demands for products can still be met. In the second case, the demands cannot all be satisfied. For these two cases, we propose two individual performance measures. We then construct a bi-criteria measure to assess the supply chain network performance for critical needs (products that are needed in disasters, specifically).
I started this blog over two years ago for several reasons, and am now experiencing a case of deja vu. One of the reasons was that my co-author Dr. Patrick Qiang and I had finished our Fragile Networks book and with so many disasters occurring in the world, I thought it important to have relevant research disseminated and discussed. Plus, students and colleagues had been providing gentle pressure that I start a blog and it would serve as a good forum for commentary. Also, my daughter was at the Bement School in 9th grade then, and her class was about to embark on a trip to the Dominican Republic to assist in an orphanage there and I thought it would be interesting to share some of their experiences after their return. Who would know that less than a year afterwards a major earthquake would hit Haiti, which shares an island with the Dominican Republic. Moreover, she will soon be off on another community service trip.
Also, Dr. Qiang and I, based on a tutorial that I gave on the subject of Fragile Networks at the ALIO-INFORMS conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, wrote a summary of some of the highlights in our book, and the article is now in press in the International Transactions in Operational Research. Our work has been applied to assess infrastructure vulnerability, especially in the context of critical infrastructure, including transportation, in various countries.
Companies with operations in Japan met post the earthquake to assess the damage. According to The New York Times, In the immediate aftermath, most companies evacuated and closed plants. Some injuries and some damage to factories have been reported, but the unknown for many operations could be the effect on supply chain operations and on the ability to receive parts and ship finished goods.
Cargo shippers reported that major Japanese ports were closed, though the shutdowns may be precautionary. The country’s major seaports, most of them south of Tokyo, play a crucial role in Japan’s export-driven economy. Japanese exports — chiefly automobiles, machinery and manufactured goods — rose by almost 25 percent in 2010, the first increase in three years, and a lengthy shutdown could create costly delays up and down the global supply chain. Several airports, including Tokyo’s Narita, had been closed.
Recently, Dr. Patrick Qiang and I revised our paper, "A Bi-Criteria Measure to Assess Supply Chain Network Performance for Critical Needs Under Capacity and Demand Disruptions ," which we had submitted to a special issue of a transportation journal on Network Vulnerability. The paper provides a model for supply chain disruptions in which capacities on various links from production to storage and transportation are affected due to disruptions (all of which is happening now post the disaster in Japan). The objective is to minimize the total network costs, which are generalized costs that may include the monetary, risk, time, and social costs.
In this paper, we consider two different cases of disruption scenarios. In the first case, we assume that the impacts of the disruptions are not as severe and, although there are capacity reductions, the demands for products can still be met. In the second case, the demands cannot all be satisfied. For these two cases, we propose two individual performance measures. We then construct a bi-criteria measure to assess the supply chain network performance for critical needs (products that are needed in disasters, specifically).
I started this blog over two years ago for several reasons, and am now experiencing a case of deja vu. One of the reasons was that my co-author Dr. Patrick Qiang and I had finished our Fragile Networks book and with so many disasters occurring in the world, I thought it important to have relevant research disseminated and discussed. Plus, students and colleagues had been providing gentle pressure that I start a blog and it would serve as a good forum for commentary. Also, my daughter was at the Bement School in 9th grade then, and her class was about to embark on a trip to the Dominican Republic to assist in an orphanage there and I thought it would be interesting to share some of their experiences after their return. Who would know that less than a year afterwards a major earthquake would hit Haiti, which shares an island with the Dominican Republic. Moreover, she will soon be off on another community service trip.
Also, Dr. Qiang and I, based on a tutorial that I gave on the subject of Fragile Networks at the ALIO-INFORMS conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, wrote a summary of some of the highlights in our book, and the article is now in press in the International Transactions in Operational Research. Our work has been applied to assess infrastructure vulnerability, especially in the context of critical infrastructure, including transportation, in various countries.
Will a Tsunami Hit and, If So, Where?
Many of us in the Northeast awoke to the news of the earthquake that struck northeastern Japan, making it the largest earthquake to ever strike the country and the fifth largest ever recorded in the world since 1900! The massive earthquake was registered at a magnitude of 8.9. President Obama was awoken at 4AM this morning due to tsunami warnings, with Hawaii, the west coast of the US, Latin and South America on alert. The warning has been lifted for New Zealand but initially 50 countries were notified about a potential tsunami.
The images from Japan have been striking with boats and vehicles being swept by massive waves, as well as houses, and the infrastructure collapsing. The buildings swayed in Tokyo, which is over 200 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, with airports closed, communications down, the high speed trains at a standstill, and fires raging in the northeast of the country. Luckily, the nuclear power plants were shut down automatically. Japan has an extensive, well-thought out building code, from lessons learned after the Kobe earthquake.
When I saw the news early this morning I immediately contacted my colleagues in Hawaii, a former student whose family lives in Japan (he just sent me a message that they are alright), and I even have a colleague at UMass Amherst who is scheduled to fly for spring break today to Costa Rica, another country where the alert has been sounded, not to mention Chile (which had an earthquake just last year and a tsunami warning), Colombia, and Peru. My last email correspondence last night was with a colleague in New Zealand so I breathed a sigh of relief that the tsunami warning has been lifted there since this country had its own recent earthquake that devastated Christchurch.
And my colleague from Hawaii just wrote to me: Anna: Thanks for your kind thoughts. Waves are beginning to hit the shoreline right now, and we should have a clearer idea soon of what kind of magnitude to expect.
We will have to wait, watch, and see what happens over the next several hours.
We are a global community so when disaster strikes the impacts propagate. Let's hope for the best.
The images from Japan have been striking with boats and vehicles being swept by massive waves, as well as houses, and the infrastructure collapsing. The buildings swayed in Tokyo, which is over 200 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, with airports closed, communications down, the high speed trains at a standstill, and fires raging in the northeast of the country. Luckily, the nuclear power plants were shut down automatically. Japan has an extensive, well-thought out building code, from lessons learned after the Kobe earthquake.
When I saw the news early this morning I immediately contacted my colleagues in Hawaii, a former student whose family lives in Japan (he just sent me a message that they are alright), and I even have a colleague at UMass Amherst who is scheduled to fly for spring break today to Costa Rica, another country where the alert has been sounded, not to mention Chile (which had an earthquake just last year and a tsunami warning), Colombia, and Peru. My last email correspondence last night was with a colleague in New Zealand so I breathed a sigh of relief that the tsunami warning has been lifted there since this country had its own recent earthquake that devastated Christchurch.
And my colleague from Hawaii just wrote to me: Anna: Thanks for your kind thoughts. Waves are beginning to hit the shoreline right now, and we should have a clearer idea soon of what kind of magnitude to expect.
We will have to wait, watch, and see what happens over the next several hours.
We are a global community so when disaster strikes the impacts propagate. Let's hope for the best.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Haiti 6 Months After -- Unblock the Roads and Fragile Networks
One year ago, our book, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World, was published and was recently noted by the Library Journal to be a top selling book in technology and engineering.6 months ago, on January 12, 2010, a huge earthquake hit Haiti and awakened the world to the wrought devastation.
I wrote regularly in this blog about the earthquake, the resulting human suffering and loss of lives, and the loss of critical infrastructure from the roads to telecommunications, plus hospitals and even schools, which only added to the suffering of the survivors. I also called for better coordination among the stakeholders and especially the humanitarian organizations for the provision of necessary supplies and decent logistics.
Today, The New York Times has an OpEd piece written by my colleagues at Georgia Tech, which is right on target, and which speaks to one of the major themes of our Fragile Networks book: that the identification of the critical network links before (and after) their degradation and even ultimate devastation is essential.
According to the OpEd piece, Haiti's External Weight, by Professors Desroches, Ergun, and Swann, 6 months after the earthquake: twenty million to 25 million cubic yards of debris fill the streets, yards, sidewalks and canals of Port-au-Prince — enough to fill five Louisiana Superdomes.
Debris is one of the most significant issues keeping Haitians from rebuilding Port-au-Prince and resuming normal lives. Much of the stuff has been left in place or simply moved to the center or the sides of roads. Some streets with especially large piles of refuse are impassable. As a result, it can take hours to travel just a few miles. Meanwhile, schools, hospitals, businesses and homes remain blocked.
Amazingly, only about 5% of the original debris has been properly disposed of and there are serious concerns about the ultimate impact of the debris on the environment, as well.
Clearly, the efficiency and performance of the transportation and logistical networks in Haiti have been severely affected and degraded without a timely debris removal. Since such networks provide the infrastructure for the movement of people and goods, how can Haiti's economy and its citizens move forward?!
Crises don't end once the media attention dissipates.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Devastating Earthquake Hits Chile
Two days ago a huge earthquake, registering 8.8 on the Richter scale, hit Chile. This was one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. Tsunami alerts were issued but, luckily, no reported major damage resulted from tsunamis although even Hawaii was under a tsunami watch. Tremors were felt as far as Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Sao Paolo, Brazil. Aftershocks have followed. However *** this is an update to this post that was written yesterday *** cnn.com is reporting that some of the deaths in Chile in coastal communities may have been due to the government not issuing a tsunami warning to Chile residents, in time.
According to an article by Marc Lacey in The New York Times, the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, called the damage caused by the quake an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile and suggested that the death toll would likely spiral higher in the days ahead, with the toll now already over 700. It seems that President Bachelet is well in control of this catastrophe, which has downed power lines, destroyed bridges, toppled buildings and cars, and resulted in the closure of the Santiago airport. President Bachelet realizes the critical importance of restoring electric power since communications and medical delivery depend on it. She has arranged with supermarkets to have people take food and water, at will.
Chile has better building standards than Haiti, whose population suffered tremendously when the earthquake hit it on January 12, 2010, with more than 200,000 estimated deaths. According to The Times, the epicenter of this Chilean earthquake was farther from populated areas, than in the case of Haiti, with its capital of Port-au-Prince, in shambles, so the scale of the damage from Chile’s significantly more powerful earthquake is expected to be nowhere near that suffered in Haiti.
My college room-mate at Brown University, Maria Teresa Davila, was from Chile, so I learned a lot about this mountainous country from her. She was also an Applied Math major and loved operations research (as did I). Interestingly, Andrew Revkin, also a fellow Brown University grad, and a New York Times journalist, writes about how the Chilean Earthquake is a Warning to the U.S.. Northwest.
According to an article by Marc Lacey in The New York Times, the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, called the damage caused by the quake an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile and suggested that the death toll would likely spiral higher in the days ahead, with the toll now already over 700. It seems that President Bachelet is well in control of this catastrophe, which has downed power lines, destroyed bridges, toppled buildings and cars, and resulted in the closure of the Santiago airport. President Bachelet realizes the critical importance of restoring electric power since communications and medical delivery depend on it. She has arranged with supermarkets to have people take food and water, at will.
Chile has better building standards than Haiti, whose population suffered tremendously when the earthquake hit it on January 12, 2010, with more than 200,000 estimated deaths. According to The Times, the epicenter of this Chilean earthquake was farther from populated areas, than in the case of Haiti, with its capital of Port-au-Prince, in shambles, so the scale of the damage from Chile’s significantly more powerful earthquake is expected to be nowhere near that suffered in Haiti.
My college room-mate at Brown University, Maria Teresa Davila, was from Chile, so I learned a lot about this mountainous country from her. She was also an Applied Math major and loved operations research (as did I). Interestingly, Andrew Revkin, also a fellow Brown University grad, and a New York Times journalist, writes about how the Chilean Earthquake is a Warning to the U.S.. Northwest.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Conundrum -- Satellite Communication Resiliency, Haiti, and the Last Mile
The issues of communications, and associated coordination, along with logistics and the bottlenecks, have permeated the post-earthquake humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti. Ironically, and, in a strange way, propitiously, it turns out that Haiti's Internet connectivity is robust precisely because its telecommunications infrastructure is so underdeveloped. Specifically, as reported in the IEEE Spectrum Tech Talk, most Haitian ISPs connect to the Internet via satellite and are not dependent on the country's lone undersea fiber optic cable link, which was knocked out the during the quake. The challenge for engineers now is the proverbial last mile--getting local connections to satellites restored so NGOs can get online. What is needed, from a communication hardware perspective, is that additional capacity, in the form of bandwidth, be added for satellite communications.
As I had written in this blog early on during this crisis, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a branch of the United Nations, located in Geneva, Switzerland, is providing additional satellite communication capacity (as it has done in numerous disasters prior). Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, the Head of Emergency Communications at the ITU, spoke at the humanitarian logistics conference that I organized, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation. You can find his presentation here, along with many others, or access it directly below.
Our book, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World, discusses how to identify the most important nodes and links in networks from telecommunications networks to transportation, logistical (including humanitarian ones), and even financial networks.
The United States and western Europe depend heavily on their copper and fiber optic interconnections (which are physical) for phone, Internet, and cable TV. There may be a very ironic lesson here and a critically important one in terms of the resiliency and robustness of telecoomunication infrastructure.
As I had written in this blog early on during this crisis, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a branch of the United Nations, located in Geneva, Switzerland, is providing additional satellite communication capacity (as it has done in numerous disasters prior). Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, the Head of Emergency Communications at the ITU, spoke at the humanitarian logistics conference that I organized, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation. You can find his presentation here, along with many others, or access it directly below.
Our book, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World, discusses how to identify the most important nodes and links in networks from telecommunications networks to transportation, logistical (including humanitarian ones), and even financial networks.
The United States and western Europe depend heavily on their copper and fiber optic interconnections (which are physical) for phone, Internet, and cable TV. There may be a very ironic lesson here and a critically important one in terms of the resiliency and robustness of telecoomunication infrastructure.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Human Component in Humanitarian Supply Chains and Haiti
As the humanitarian operations in Haiti post its devastating earthquake are evolving in time, it is essential to recognize the human element in the critical needs supply chains. As we read and watch the events unfold, we, as researchers, educators, and practitioners, need to recognize the pivotal role that humans are playing in the dissemination of the food, clean water, medicines, and services.
The essential supplies are being delivered through a combination of organizations from the UN, the various humanitarian NGOs, as well as the military from the US, with the US and numerous countries from around the globe airlifting the essentials. Ultimately, it is humans helping humans, through the creation of real-time, agile, and adaptive supply chains, for product and service distribution. It is people, working together, who are physically constructing and becoming parts of the chains to ferry and ferret supplies to the Haitians, whether from the trucks, or the helicopters, or the boats, or from the hospitals that have been set up. The other networks from financial ones to information ones are further supporting the humanitarian efforts and helping to reinforce the fragile supernetwork for recovery.
All those who are physically lending a hand, from the medical professionals, to the logisticians, to the engineers, and the governmental units, deserve our support and deepest thanks.
The essential supplies are being delivered through a combination of organizations from the UN, the various humanitarian NGOs, as well as the military from the US, with the US and numerous countries from around the globe airlifting the essentials. Ultimately, it is humans helping humans, through the creation of real-time, agile, and adaptive supply chains, for product and service distribution. It is people, working together, who are physically constructing and becoming parts of the chains to ferry and ferret supplies to the Haitians, whether from the trucks, or the helicopters, or the boats, or from the hospitals that have been set up. The other networks from financial ones to information ones are further supporting the humanitarian efforts and helping to reinforce the fragile supernetwork for recovery.
All those who are physically lending a hand, from the medical professionals, to the logisticians, to the engineers, and the governmental units, deserve our support and deepest thanks.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Coordination and Collaboration, Logistics in Disaster Response, Business Schools
Although the New York Times has assembled a group of experts to comment on the Haiti disaster response, rescue, and recovery, the group has no logistics and operations research experts. However, it is precisely the latter type of experts that can assess what can be done in such crisis humanitarian operations and, interestingly, they can be found in business schools.
INSEAD, considered one of the top business schools in the world, has now released a video interview with Mr. Rolando Tomasini and Dr. Luk van Wassenhove, which provides a very knowledgable and balanced perspective of the crisis. Mr. Tomasini was one of the speakers at the humanitarian logistics conference that I organized and that was hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation. At the conference, he spoke on his joint work in the field with Professor van Wassenhove. Information on their book, Humanitarian Logistics, and our Fragile Networks book, can be found on the above conference website. You can also reference these books and several other ones on the topic of humanitarian supply chains here on Amazon.com.
I have been writing about the crisis in Haiti and the lack of coordination and collaboration. What was/is needed (and as the above two researchers emphasize in their videocast) is centralization of the logistics operations as well as more careful scheduling and delivery of the critical needs supplies. Indeed, having the proper command and control in place, which, in this case, necessarily has to be by an outside body (politics aside) due to the destruction of many of the government bodies in Haiti, may have assisted in the delivery of the food, water, medicines, along with the personnel in a timely and more logical manner.
We are reading about doctors and medical personnel who are waiting for hours at the airport in Haiti for the medical supplies to arrive as well as for the vehicles to transport them to the wounded. The field of operations research, as a discipline, dates to World War II, and it has evolved into a knowledge base renowned for expertise in transportation, logistics, humanitarian operations included, and numerous many other applications. We need the command and control (and communications, of course) structure to succeed in a humanitarian operation and recovery on a massive scale. Then the additional hard work begins -- the reconstruction and development, which must be done with careful and well thought out, rigorous planning.
INSEAD, considered one of the top business schools in the world, has now released a video interview with Mr. Rolando Tomasini and Dr. Luk van Wassenhove, which provides a very knowledgable and balanced perspective of the crisis. Mr. Tomasini was one of the speakers at the humanitarian logistics conference that I organized and that was hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation. At the conference, he spoke on his joint work in the field with Professor van Wassenhove. Information on their book, Humanitarian Logistics, and our Fragile Networks book, can be found on the above conference website. You can also reference these books and several other ones on the topic of humanitarian supply chains here on Amazon.com.
I have been writing about the crisis in Haiti and the lack of coordination and collaboration. What was/is needed (and as the above two researchers emphasize in their videocast) is centralization of the logistics operations as well as more careful scheduling and delivery of the critical needs supplies. Indeed, having the proper command and control in place, which, in this case, necessarily has to be by an outside body (politics aside) due to the destruction of many of the government bodies in Haiti, may have assisted in the delivery of the food, water, medicines, along with the personnel in a timely and more logical manner.
We are reading about doctors and medical personnel who are waiting for hours at the airport in Haiti for the medical supplies to arrive as well as for the vehicles to transport them to the wounded. The field of operations research, as a discipline, dates to World War II, and it has evolved into a knowledge base renowned for expertise in transportation, logistics, humanitarian operations included, and numerous many other applications. We need the command and control (and communications, of course) structure to succeed in a humanitarian operation and recovery on a massive scale. Then the additional hard work begins -- the reconstruction and development, which must be done with careful and well thought out, rigorous planning.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A Logistics Nightmare in Haiti Post the Earthquake and the Price of Anarchy
The New York Times is reporting today on the logistical nightmare faced by relief workers in trying to get the critical needs supplies to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Airplanes have had to circle from 2 to 3 hours before landing; there is no central control of distribution of supplies even after the planes land, plus many of the roads (which were not in good shape even prior to the quake) are now severely damaged if not littered with debris, and the principal port and equipment for unloading supplies have also been seriously affected. The relief workers are trying to determine alternative routes so that they can deliver the clean water, medical supplies, and food. At the same time, congestion is becoming an issue (sometimes referred to as convergence in humanitarian logistics parlance) since vehicles and supplies do not have sufficient warehousing capacity in which to offload and from which to distribute.
The situation in Haiti brings to mind a measure in network analysis, notably, in transportation and telecommunications, called the price of anarchy, which is the ratio of the total cost under user-optimizing (decentralized) behavior to the total cost under system-optimizing (centralized) behavior. We recently published a paper on transportation network robustness in the presence of degradable links in the International Transactions in Operational Research and related our new measures to the price of anarchy. Had Haiti had a more resilient and robust network infrastructure, the losses may not have been so severe.
As this article in the Times and others in the press have stated, this is a disaster of monumental proportions. What will happen in the next few hours and days will determine also how many of those who have survived will be able to go on in such horrendous circumstances.
What will transpire in the next couple of weeks and months in Haiti will be a serious case study on the interplay of development, reconstruction, and humanitarianism.
The situation in Haiti brings to mind a measure in network analysis, notably, in transportation and telecommunications, called the price of anarchy, which is the ratio of the total cost under user-optimizing (decentralized) behavior to the total cost under system-optimizing (centralized) behavior. We recently published a paper on transportation network robustness in the presence of degradable links in the International Transactions in Operational Research and related our new measures to the price of anarchy. Had Haiti had a more resilient and robust network infrastructure, the losses may not have been so severe.
As this article in the Times and others in the press have stated, this is a disaster of monumental proportions. What will happen in the next few hours and days will determine also how many of those who have survived will be able to go on in such horrendous circumstances.
What will transpire in the next couple of weeks and months in Haiti will be a serious case study on the interplay of development, reconstruction, and humanitarianism.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Humanitarian Logistics, Fragile Networks, and the Crisis in Haiti
The calamitous earthquake in Haiti is now resulting in a humanitarian emergency of immense proportions. Those of us who work and conduct research in logistics are eyeing the evolving events in real-time. Many of the frustrations lie in not being able to apply best practices when already fragile networks are further disrupted because of chaotic events.
As academics, we can do much regarding capturing the state-of-the-art of humanitarian logistics knowledge so that when crises occur, even of monumental proportions, they can be put to use. For example, collaboration amongst organizations is key, which we are not seeing (yet) in Haiti. Also, centralization is essential for assessment and information capture and dissemination. In Port-au-Prince, the network infrastructure has been decimated from the roads and electric power lines to the hospitals, schools, homes, and even government offices. The problems now are ones of transportation and logistics and in supplying the victims with their critical need products from food, clean water, to medicine.
What we can also offer is a readily-accessible forum and venue that contains collections of lessons learned from past disasters, including Katrina. Towards that end, I am providing related links to talks on Hurricane Katrina, Fragile Networks, and other related topics here.
In addition, a website devoted to humanitarian logistics, which contains numerous presentations and documentation can be found on the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Humanitarian Logistics site that I developed for the conference that I organized at the center. There you will also find information on our Fragile Networks book, which contains information on supply chains in humanitarian operations and the synergies associated with collaboration. In addition, Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, one of the participants in this conference, who is Chief of the Division of Emergency Communications, at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland, is helping to coordinate the communications in Haiti. He had previously coordinated the telecommunications after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar/Burma. His presentation on the critical importance of telecommunications during and post disasters is also posted on the link above.
Today, we completed a paper on the evaluation of supply chain network performance under a spectrum of disruptions as are occurring in Haiti. If we cannot physically be there to help, we, nevertheless, have to assist in whichever way that we can.
Our Fragile Networks book (in a rather freaky coincidence) has been listed as an interesting new book by MCEER, a center which focuses on earthquake engineering to extreme events.
As academics, we can do much regarding capturing the state-of-the-art of humanitarian logistics knowledge so that when crises occur, even of monumental proportions, they can be put to use. For example, collaboration amongst organizations is key, which we are not seeing (yet) in Haiti. Also, centralization is essential for assessment and information capture and dissemination. In Port-au-Prince, the network infrastructure has been decimated from the roads and electric power lines to the hospitals, schools, homes, and even government offices. The problems now are ones of transportation and logistics and in supplying the victims with their critical need products from food, clean water, to medicine.
What we can also offer is a readily-accessible forum and venue that contains collections of lessons learned from past disasters, including Katrina. Towards that end, I am providing related links to talks on Hurricane Katrina, Fragile Networks, and other related topics here.
In addition, a website devoted to humanitarian logistics, which contains numerous presentations and documentation can be found on the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Humanitarian Logistics site that I developed for the conference that I organized at the center. There you will also find information on our Fragile Networks book, which contains information on supply chains in humanitarian operations and the synergies associated with collaboration. In addition, Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, one of the participants in this conference, who is Chief of the Division of Emergency Communications, at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland, is helping to coordinate the communications in Haiti. He had previously coordinated the telecommunications after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar/Burma. His presentation on the critical importance of telecommunications during and post disasters is also posted on the link above.
Today, we completed a paper on the evaluation of supply chain network performance under a spectrum of disruptions as are occurring in Haiti. If we cannot physically be there to help, we, nevertheless, have to assist in whichever way that we can.
Our Fragile Networks book (in a rather freaky coincidence) has been listed as an interesting new book by MCEER, a center which focuses on earthquake engineering to extreme events.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Earthquake in Haiti and Critical Needs
The worst earthquake in two centuries hit Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, yesterday. The pain, suffering, and devastation are horrific. This natural disaster is creating havoc for humanitarian operations because of the destruction of much of the infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals, in the capital, which was the hardest hit. Interestingly, the World Food Program had stockpiled food supplies in Haiti in preparation for disasters, with hurricanes, being the most expected ones. It is now also airlifting food supplies. Haiti is on an island which is also home to the Dominican Republic.
Exactly one year ago, my daughter and her classmates at the Bement School in Deerfield, Massachusetts were packing up to go on their trip to the Dominican Republic to help out in an orphanage. This year's 9th grade class at Bement is also scheduled in early February to travel there. The airport in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic is now being utilized to assist in Haiti's recovery. Last year, with excitement and nervous anticipation, I let my daughter travel there on a community service mission, which deeply affected all those who took part. I wonder whether this year's trip will take place given the extreme seriousness of the disaster in Haiti. She had, this past weekend, completed a huge photo montage of memories from last year's trip to the Dominican Republic that a teacher was going to deliver to the orphanage. I, in the meantime, was busy working on a research paper with a co-author on the assessment of supply chain performance in the case of disasters (an ironically timely topic) for submission to a special issue of a journal on transportation network vulnerability.
Our hearts and prayers go out to all those affected by this earthquake.
Exactly one year ago, my daughter and her classmates at the Bement School in Deerfield, Massachusetts were packing up to go on their trip to the Dominican Republic to help out in an orphanage. This year's 9th grade class at Bement is also scheduled in early February to travel there. The airport in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic is now being utilized to assist in Haiti's recovery. Last year, with excitement and nervous anticipation, I let my daughter travel there on a community service mission, which deeply affected all those who took part. I wonder whether this year's trip will take place given the extreme seriousness of the disaster in Haiti. She had, this past weekend, completed a huge photo montage of memories from last year's trip to the Dominican Republic that a teacher was going to deliver to the orphanage. I, in the meantime, was busy working on a research paper with a co-author on the assessment of supply chain performance in the case of disasters (an ironically timely topic) for submission to a special issue of a journal on transportation network vulnerability.
Our hearts and prayers go out to all those affected by this earthquake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
