Reconfiguration of Foodbank Network Logistics to Cope with a Sudden Disaster

Esteban Ogazón, Neale R. Smith and Angel Ruiz
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Esteban Ogazón: Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64849, Mexico
Neale R. Smith: Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64849, Mexico
Angel Ruiz: Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT), Faculty of Business Administration, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

Mathematics, 2022, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: Foodbank networks provide adequate infrastructure and perform logistics activities to supply food to people in need on a day-to-day basis. However, in the case of a sudden event, such as a natural disaster, they must reconfigure themselves to quickly and fairly satisfy the needs of the affected people, despite the rapid changes in supply and demand, as much as possible. In contrast to most of the studies in the humanitarian logistics literature, which have focused on aid distribution—the downstream part of the supply chain—this paper extends the field of view upstream, explicitly considering supply (or, in the case of foodbanks, donors). To this end, we compare several network design strategies in order to assess the potential benefits of centralized decisions in a context where, in practice, there exists no formal protocol to support bank coordination. We propose a mathematical formulation for the design of such logistics processes, including collection, transshipment, and aid distribution, over a network of foodbanks inspired by the real case of Bancos de Alimentos de México (BAMX). The case considers several categories of food and encompasses restrictions on their mixture to ensure the nutritional quality of the delivered food, distinct from other models in the literature. Finally, we assess the differences in the strategies through the use of effectiveness and efficiency performance metrics.

Keywords: humanitarian logistics; relief distribution; network design problem; food banks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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