November 02, 2012 at 8:00AM - November 02, 2012 at 9:00AM
MIT Room E62-687
On the Appropriate Objective Function for Post-Disaster Humanitarian Logistics Models: Social Cost and Deprivation Cost Functions
Q&A brownbag lunch, drinks and cookies provided
Abstract
There is an increasing body of research that suggests the existence of substantial differences between commercial and humanitarian logistics. In a previous publication, Holguín-Veras et al. (2012a) highlighted the importance of making a distinction between regular humanitarian logistics, e.g., the routing delivery of critical supplies to chronic crisis regions, and post-disaster humanitarian logistics that are related to the delivery of aid in the aftermath of an extreme event. The analyses found seven characteristics that differentiate commercial logistics, regular humanitarian logistics, and post-disaster humanitarian logistics: objective pursued, origination of the commodity flows, knowledge of demand, decision-making structure, periodicity/volume of logistic activities, state of social fabric and networks, and state of the supporting systems.
The analyses concluded that the objective pursued by the different types of logistic endeavors is one of the most important differences between them, and, by extension, the objective functions used in the analytical formulations at the core of their corresponding decision support systems. While in the commercial case, minimization of logistic costs is the primary motivation, in the humanitarian case other factors come in to play, most notably the impacts on human suffering. In commercial logistics the emphasis is on how to efficiently satisfy demand, in conditions where supply equals or exceeds demands, while humanitarian logistics emphasize how best to administer the shortage of critical supplies so that its distribution leads to the greatest social good. This emphasis, as discussed in the paper, requires that post-disaster humanitarian logistics models explicitly consider the opportunity costs of the delivery actions, and leads to models that are structurally different from the ones inspired by the commercial logistic paradigm.
The objective function is fundamental to questions of how to harmonize conflicting goals, and how to optimally allocate scarce resources. Maintaining high levels of service at the affected areas requires large logistical expenditures that may not be possible. On the other hand, minimizing logistic costs without considering the impacts on the population could negatively affect their welfare. Identifying the best combination of logistic effort and level of service is essential, though doing so is only possible if the objective function properly measures both aspects. If the model does not establish an isomorphic relation with the real system, its ability to produce sound recommendations will be compromised. The main purpose of this presentation is to discuss how to accomplish this balance.
The presentation: investigates appropriate ways to define the objective function of post-disaster humanitarian logistics analytical models; identify the characteristics that deprivation cost functions should have; discuss philosophical and economic aspects of relevance to deprivation cost estimation; shed light on the adequacy of proxy ways to consider human suffering; and assess the impacts of using these approaches (Holguín-Veras et al., 2012b).
References:
Holguín-Veras, J., M. Jaller, L. N. V. Wassenhove, N. Pérez and T. Wachtendorf (2012a). "On the Unique Features of Post-Disaster Humanitarian Logistics." Journal of Management 30: 494-506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2012.08.003
Holguín-Veras, J., N. Pérez, M. Jaller, L. N. V. Wassenhove and F. Aros-Vera (2012b). "On the Appropriate Objective Function for Post-Disaster Humanitarian Logistics Models." (in review).
Bio
Dr. José Holguín-Veras is the William H. Hart Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Director of the Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment. He received his B.Sc. from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Magna Cum Laude in 1981, his M. Sc. from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1984, and his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1996. He is the recipient of a number of national awards, including the Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award in 1996 and the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award, for his contributions to freight transportation modeling and economics. His research interests are in the areas of: humanitarian logistics, intermodal freight transportation, freight transportation modeling, transportation planning, and transportation economics. He has published extensively in these areas.
In the area of humanitarian logistics, he has pioneered fieldwork research in the aftermath of large disasters to extract the lessons that the disaster community ought to learn to improve future humanitarian logistic efforts. In this capacity, his team has studied the most prominent disasters of recent times, including: the 2005 Katrina disasters, the 2010 Port au Prince earthquake, the 2011 Tohoku disasters in Japan, among many others. He has also conducted research that integrates social/disaster science principles into humanitarian logistics. He is a member of National Academy of Sciences’ Disaster Research Roundtable, is an advisor of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Regional Catastrophic Planning Group for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut, and Pennsylvania region; is a member of a number of Technical Committees of the Transportation Research Board; the American Society of Civil Engineers, and is a referee for the major professional journals. He is in the editorial boards of prestigious journals, the Transportation Area Editor for Networks and Spatial Economics, President of the Scientific Committee of the Pan-American Conference of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, and elected member of the Council of the Association for European Transport.