Pandemics cause chaotic situations in supply chains (SC) around the globe, which can lead towards survivability challenges. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that has severely affected global business dynamics. Similar vulnerabilities have been caused by other outbreaks in the past. In these terms, prevention strategies against propagating disruptions require vigilant goal conceptualization and roadmaps. In this respect, there is a need to explore supply chain operation management strategies to overcome the challenges that emerge due to COVID-19-like situations. Therefore, this review is aimed at exploring such challenges and developing strategies for sustainability, and viability perspectives for SCs, through a structured literature review (SLR) approach. Moreover, this study investigated the impacts of previous epidemic outbreaks on SCs, to identify the research objectives, methodological approaches, and implications for SCs. The study also explored the impacts of epidemic outbreaks on the business environment, in terms of effective resource allocation, supply and demand disruptions, and transportation network optimization, through operations management techniques. Furthermore, this article structured a framework that emphasizes the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies, resilience strategies, and sustainability to overcome SC challenges during pandemics. Finally, future research avenues were identified by including a research agenda for experts and practitioners to develop new pathways to get out of the crisis.
1 January 2016 in Mathematical Problems in Engineering
In the past decade the humanitarian supply chain (HSC) has attracted the attention of researchers due to the increasing frequency of disasters. The uncertainty in time, location, and severity of disaster during predisaster phase and poor conditions of available infrastructure during postdisaster phase make HSC operations difficult to handle. In order to overcome the difficulties during these phases, we need to assure that HSC operations are designed in an efficient manner to minimize human and economic losses. In the recent times, several mathematical optimization techniques and algorithms have been developed to increase the efficiency of HSC operations. These techniques and algorithms developed for the field of HSC motivate the need of a systematic literature review. Owing to the importance of mathematical modelling techniques, this paper presents the review of the mathematical contributions made in the last decade in the field of HSC. A systematic literature review methodology is used for this paper due to its transparent procedure. There are two objectives of this study: the first one is to conduct an up-to-date survey of mathematical models developed in HSC area and the second one is to highlight the potential research areas which require attention of the researchers.
1 December 2020 in Energy Conversion and Management
Natural disasters always generate an overwhelming amount of debris. Reusing and recycling waste from disasters are essential for sustainable debris management. Before recycling the debris, it is necessary to sort this mixed waste. To perform the sorting process efficiently, a Temporary Disaster Debris Management Site (TDDMS) is required, and the selection of TDDMS is a multi-criteria decision-making problem due to its numerous regional and municipal constraints. This paper provides a two-phase framework for sustainable debris management during the response phase of disasters. In the first phase, a methodology for TDDMS selection is proposed that consists of Analytical Network Process (ANP) and a fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In the second phase, a debris allocation optimization model is developed to allocate the debris from disaster-affected regions to the selected TDDMS. A city prone to hurricane damage is selected to illustrate the proposed framework. For the debris allocation purpose, five TDDMS are chosen, among which three sites are selected using the proposed methodology. To illustrate the utilization of the proposed study, a numerical example with two different scenarios is provided. Numerical outcomes prove that the model results in a sustainable debris management system for disasters.