Tech Topics - Winter 2007 - (Page 23) TheHill ROB FELT GLOBAL RED ALERT ISyE professors research humanitarian relief logistics and educational efforts to improve humanitarian relief planning, capacity building and effective management of n the last few years, the world has seen response activities. an increase in major natural disasters — The Stewart School’s experience in the tsunami in South Asia, the earthquake improving logistics in private industry in Pakistan, Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf will be a significant strength to the Coast area and most recently the humanitarian field. To address the many earthquake in Java, Indonesia. different kinds of issues that span across Unfortunately these catastrophes are various disciplines, the center will work not anomalies but rather a pattern of with an interdisciplinary team that increased volatility often attributed to includes other faculty and researchers changing weather patterns and human across Georgia Tech’s campus and occupation of hazardous locations — and beyond. they are expected to continue. In addition The center also is partnering with to these natural disasters, man-made government agencies, nongovernmental crises arising from terrorist activities and organizations and private corporations. war often have similar effects on These partnerships are essential because populations in terms of dangerous they allow the humanitarian relief team to conditions and lack of basic necessities, collect data and identify research areas including shelter, water, food and safety. that can make a greater impact. A special Humanitarian relief aid is typically emphasis has been placed on building a provided on an urgent basis in response bridge between industry and to a humanitarian crisis through humanitarian relief aid agencies. governments and global aid agencies. Within the research, significant focus Unfortunately, past areas include design catastrophes have of the supply chain highlighted the and distribution Epidemiologists severe difficulties network, have warned that that these transportation and organizations have in dynamic control and one in every three planning for, and demand people on the responding to, these management, events. including inventory planet could be Examples are and forecasting infected during a well-known: decisions. Projects pandemic. Advanced warning also will include an systems for the evaluation tsunami could have component as this is reduced the injuries a crucial step toward assessing the and fatalities; agencies had difficulty systems as well as the impact to the end reaching Pakistani earthquake victims user. due to weather and damaged infraWithin many of these problems, an structures; and levees in New Orleans important aspect is decentralization. were inadequate, officials were slow to When a natural, security or health crisis respond with help, and the aid that was occurs, often the hierarchical procured and transported mismatched infrastructure, like transportation and the needs. Many of these inefficiencies communications networks, breaks down could have been avoided with advanced and the people responding to the crisis planning and capacity building, as well as manage the recovery operations through effective management of response locally based activities without observing activities. other parts of the system. In response to this, the H. Milton By explicitly incorporating the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems decentralized behaviors into the Engineering’s Supply Chain & Logistics optimization models, the network and Institute established a Center of Focused operational tools can be designed to Research on Humanitarian Relief Logistics to achieve performance closer to the optimal help improve the human condition through system. advanced science and technology. The center A graduate-level class in humanwill coordinate various research, outreach itarian research developed in the spring of By Ozlem Ergun, Julie Swann and Pinar Keskinocak I H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering professors, left to right, Julie Swann, IE 96, Ozlem Ergun and Pinar Keskinocak co-direct the Center of Focused Research on Humanitarian Relief Logistics at Georgia Tech. 2006 focused on the applications of operations research and management science with public impact. The course topics included humanitarian logistics, preparedness (food and vaccination plans) for pandemic response, prepositioning inventory for humanitarian response and vaccine procurement. Students participating in the course were divided into teams to research realworld projects in collaboration with faculty advisers and nonprofit organizations. When an epidemic occurs, it spreads in a limited area and affects the population in that local area. However, a pandemic could affect the entire world. Given the increased instances of the avian flu over the past few years, experts think that a pandemic flu might happen in the near future. Epidemiologists have warned that one in every three people on the planet could be infected during a pandemic, with many of them requiring hospitalization. With this in mind, a pandemic response team constructed a model to predict the number of people infected and geographical locations using data for the state of Georgia. The team developed optimization models to design networks to distribute food and vaccines to affected populations. Disease simulation also is used to analyze health aspects such as the number and location of clinics to be set up including staffing requirements and logistics needs. Demand for emergency supplies such as water, tents and food caused by natural disasters is unpredictable. Most humanitarian organizations like CARE rely completely on local suppliers during a response to emergencies. This has the benefits of stimulating the local economy and accelerating the process of reconstruction. However, when the emergency is of a large scale, such as the Asian tsunami, availability of local supplies can become a problem. Supplies have to be imported from unanticipated places, slowing the response considerably. By stockpiling relief items in strategic locations around the world, humanitarian organizations can have supplies and transportation systems ready in anticipation of potential emergencies. The research team analyzed the impact of such strategies on the expected timeliness of response. The team developed recommendations about the number of warehouses to open and the amount and type of supplies to store. The project complemented previous studies about prepositioning and provided CARE with high-level guidance about these important decisions. CARE, along with three other organizations, is now starting to stockpile supplies in one of the warehouses where the highest benefit was identified and plans to expand its network gradually. Read more about the Center of Focused Research on Humanitarian Relief Logistics in Engineering Enterprise, the ISyE alumni magazine, at www.isye.gatech.edu/newsevents/eemag/pdfs/20071Summer.pdf. GT 23 TECHTOPICS | WINTER 2007 http://www.isye.gatech.edu/news-events/eemag/pdfs/20071Summer.pdf http://www.isye.gatech.edu/news-events/eemag/pdfs/20071Summer.pdf
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