Date of Graduation

12-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Industrial Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Milburn, Ashlea B.

Committee Member/Reader

Rainwater, Chase E.

Abstract

This project consists of developing a Location Allocation model that focuses on determining the locations of relief supply Points of Distribution (PODs) after a natural disaster and how to assign demand points to them. According to FEMA, PODs are “centralized locations where the public picks up life sustaining commodities following a disaster or emergency” [1]. After each disaster, decisions have to be made to ensure a good delivery of resources in a timely manner. The road infrastructure may be damaged due to the disaster. Some roads might become inoperable, and some bridges are expected to fail. The model studied in this research makes decisions about the locations of PODs after knowing the real-time information about the road infrastructure and magnitude of demand at the beginning of each period of the planning horizon. A case study developed based on the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) is used to demonstrate the usefulness of our model. Our study area is limited to the nineteen counties in Arkansas that are most likely to be affected by the New Madrid earthquake. Many lives can be saved if a good logistics plan exists. A good humanitarian logistics plan can reduce the suffering of the affected population and the cost associated with providing supplies. This project extends previous work completed as part of the Department of Transportation Mack Blackwell Transportation Center Project 3028, “Models for Disaster Relief Shelter Location and Supply Routing” [2]. We examine 96 potential disaster scenarios by alternating problem parameters. We are considering four road networks instances, three budgets, four demand patterns, and two POD capacities. An offline model is used in order to compare the online model results.

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