Integrated planning for humanitarian and healthcare logistics

我们的世界一直处于危机之中，我们需要更好地服务于我们的社区。出于这个原因，在过去的十年里，人道主义和医疗保健物流越来越受到运筹学和管理科学(OR/MS)学者的关注。科学家们的动机是新的和难以解决的优化问题的定义，以及从实际角度寻求的积极影响。一方面，气候变化、政治冲突和社会差距正在给世界各地造成破坏。另一方面，(公共)医疗组织需要物流来向更多的人口(低收入国家的情况)或大型老年社区(如高收入国家)提供医疗服务，这些服务的资源一次比一次稀缺。在所有情况下，后勤在向有需要的人提供帮助方面发挥着关键作用，在需要的时候，在需要的时候，并以有效、公平和效率的方式提供帮助。*为了规划和使用应对人道主义和医疗保健组织挑战的分销网络，OR/MS提供工具来支持网络设计、交通规划和资源分配等问题的决策。然而，这些情况的特殊性要求新的模式和解决工具，无论是规划长期的后勤网络(例如，人道主义发展或医疗保健服务)，还是仅在短期内部署其努力(例如，救灾、临时医疗中心或血液采集单位)。*从长远来看，我的研究计划旨在提供一个方法论框架，共同规划和开发优化资源使用的分销网络，同时实现这些组织的目标。为了实现这一长期目标，我建议在未来五年内解决关于综合后勤规划的四个关键问题，这些问题尚未在文献中得到解决。首先，我将研究和确定人道主义和医疗保健物流分销网络的共同点，寻求这些领域的研究协同。其次，研究库存管理与选址路径问题的整合，提供能够从整体上考虑这三个问题的计划工具。第三，我将创建模型和解析工具，以不仅决定如何使用布线计划设计网络，而且决定如何分配关键资源(如车辆或人员)。最后，我将研究如何使用多准则优化将其他目标(公平、可靠性)纳入综合规划方法。这项研究计划将通过扩大我们对综合物流规划的理解，为物流和优化领域做出贡献。此外，它通过提供有效的决策支持工具来应对来自人道主义和医疗保健组织的现实挑战，从而追求对经济和社会福利的贡献。

Our world is in constant crisis and we need to serve our communities better. For this reason, humanitarian and healthcare logistics have gained increased attention from academics on operational research and management science (OR/MS) in the last ten years. Scientists are motivated by the definition of new and hard-to-solve optimization problems, as well as the positive impact sought from a practical standpoint. From one side, climate change, political conflicts and social disparities are causing damage everywhere. On the other side, (public) healthcare organizations need logistics to deliver healthcare services with resources that become scarcer each time, to a larger population (as is the case of countries with low income) or with large elderly communities (as in high income countries). In all cases, logistics play a key role in the delivery of help to people in need, when needed, as needed, and with efficacy, equity and efficiency. ******To plan and use a distribution network that responds to the challenges of humanitarian and healthcare organizations, OR/MS offers tools to support decision-making in problems such as network design, transportation planning and resource allocation. However, the particularities of these contexts call for new models and resolution tools, whether to plan a long-term logistics network (e.g., for humanitarian development or healthcare services), or to deploy their efforts only for a short period (e.g., disaster relief, temporary medical centers or blood collection units). ******My research program aims, in the long term, to provide a methodological framework to jointly plan and exploit distribution networks that optimize the use of resources, while achieving the goals of these organizations. To accomplish this long-term objective, in the next five years I propose to tackle four critical questions about integrated logistic planning that have yet to be addressed in the literature. First, I will study and identify common ground in distribution networks for humanitarian and healthcare logistics seeking research synergy in these domains. Second, I will investigate the integration of inventory management to the location routing problem, to provide planning tools capable of considering these three problems holistically. Third, I will create models and resolution tools to decide not only how to design the networks with a routing plan, but how to distribute the key resources (as vehicles or staff). Finally, I will investigate how to include other goals (equity, reliability) to the integrated planning approach, using multi-criterion optimization. This research program will contribute to the fields of logistics and optimization by expanding our understanding of integrated logistic planning. Moreover, it pursues a contribution to economic and social welfare by providing efficient decision support tools to real-life challenges from humanitarian and healthcare organizations.