Aruna Apte

Capabilities and competencies in humanitarian operations

Purpose – Both the military and non-military organizations (NMO) bring assets, skills, and capabilities to a humanitarian crisis, however, their capabilities and competencies are very diverse. Identification of the specific competencies and capabilities that are core to these types of organizations can enable better planning by both military and NMOs, allowing them to achieve greater effectiveness and efficiency in the humanitarian response. The purpose of this paper is to explore the core capabilities of the military and NMOs engaged in humanitarian operations. Design/methodology/approach – The work builds on existing literature on the core competency of the corporation. The authors extend the concept of the ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core capabilities in the private sector to the organizations that want to respond efficiently and effectively to disasters. The authors develop a core competencies test for such organizations. Findings – The research identifies the competencies and capabilities that are core to the US military and NMOs for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. By identifying such abilities the authors establish a vein of research for exploring the role of such organizations to facilitate greater understanding among academics, policy makers, and decision makers in public administration, public health, and international aid. Originality/value – Existing literature in humanitarian logistics does not adequately address identification of those competencies and capabilities that are core to the military organizations and NMOs and are most needed during the operational life cycle of a humanitarian crisis. In addition to identifying them, the authors compare the core capabilities of the military and NMO.

Request and Response Processes for Department of Defense Support during Domestic Disasters

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is a well-equipped and well-trained federal agency capable of providing assistance to relief efforts in a domestic disaster. However, the existence of several different levels of civil response, the variety of the agencies that become involved in the response, the regulations governing the DoD’s involvement, and a lack of understanding of the services the DoD can provide during a disaster lead to confusion which hinders the effectiveness of the response efforts. The concern this paper addresses is the lack of understanding by a number of disaster relief professionals of the exact role of the DoD, as well as the boundaries within which it must operate, during a domestic disaster response. This paper addresses this concern by outlining the recently standardized civil response process for small- to large-scale disasters involving local, state, and federal government organizations, as well as explaining the processes for requesting DoD support and the roles DoD organizations can play. Insights and further research opportunities are also presented.

Casualty Collection Points Optimization: A Study for the District of Columbia

A casualty collection point CCP is a single, predetermined location that is organized, staffed, and equipped to provide decontamination if required, emergency medical assessment, treatment, and, where necessary, onward transportation of victims of a mass casualty incident. Emergency planners in the District of Columbia have recognized the desirability of developing a tool to assist planners in selecting CCPs within the affected area following a major incident. We develop a CCP optimization model CCPOM that provides planners and policymakers with strategic and operational insights into the complex problem of selecting optimal CCP locations to maximize casualty throughput for a range of incident parameters. Even more relevant, the CCPOM determines the utilization of personnel, decontamination units, and ambulances, providing planners with a general structure for resource allocation and signaling shortfalls that may lead to bottlenecks in casualty processing at the CCPs. District planners found many nonintuitive CCPOM results to be significant to their planning, programming, and budgeting efforts, and now consider the models categorized resource utilization to be an integral part in updating District plans for both national special security event planning and everyday events.

Complexity and Self-Sustainment in Disaster Response Supply Chains

Governmental organizations play a major role in disaster relief operations. Supply chains set up to respond to disasters differ dramatically in many dimensions that affect the cost of relief efforts. One factor that has been described recently is self-sustainment, which occurs when supplies consumed by intermediate stages of a supply chain must be provided via the chain itself because they are not locally available. This article applies the concept of self-sustainment to response supply chains. A mathematical model of a self-sustaining response supply chain is developed. Analysis of this model yields insights about the relationships and interactions among self-sustainment, speed of disaster onset, dispersion of impact, and the cost of the relief efforts.

SERVICES SUPPLY CHAIN IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF CURRENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Services acquisition in the US Department of Defense (DoD) has continued to increase in scope and dollars in the past decade with over

Modeling disruption in a fresh produce supply chain

200 billion spent for services in 2008. In this empirical study, we conducted a web-based survey to collect primary data on management practices in services acquisition in the U. S. Navy and studied such areas as contract characteristics, management approaches, and program management issues. The paper presents summary results of our survey, implications of current management practices, and recommendations useful for improving services acquisition in the Navy.

Reacting to Crisis: The Costs of First Response by the United States Navy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify elements that make fresh produce supply chains (FPSCs) vulnerable to disruptions and to quantify the benefits of different disruption-management strategies. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a mathematical model of a disruption in a FPSC and analyzes the relationships among variables. Findings The model determines the optimal safety stock as a function of the perishability of the produce, the length of time it takes to find the contamination, the level of demand during the disruption, and the amount of produce that can be rerouted. Applying the model to the 2006 E. coli spinach contamination reveals that the drop in customer demand for fresh spinach plays the largest role in Dole losing sales. Research limitations/implications The model includes several parameters that may be difficult to estimate. Future models can incorporate uncertainty that is inherent in supply chain disruptions. Practical implications The model in this paper can help a supply chain (SC) manager explore the trade-offs of different disruption-management strategies. For example, a SC manager can determine the value of holding additional safety stock vs trying to improve traceability in the SC. Originality/value This paper quantifies and models insights delivered in the qualitative analyses of FPSC disruptions. The theoretical contributions include an analysis of the interaction among safety stock, levels of demand, communication, and traceability parameters in order to help SC managers evaluate different strategies to mitigate the effects of contaminated produce.

An application of the multiple knapsack problem: The self-sufficient marine

Abstract The U.S. Navy has declared humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) operations as a core mission in support of the U.S. national security strategy. However little work has been done to illustrate which vessels are typically deployed for such operations or the costs of these deployments which, as contingencies, are not part of the regular defense budget. In this work we summarize some of the work that has been done in the area of cost analysis for U.S. Navy HADR operations and conclude with implications for policy makers.

Evacuating People with Mobility‐Challenges in a Short‐Notice Disaster

Self-Sufficiency (SS) is the ability to maintain capability without external support or aid. Operations in austere environments with limited functional infrastructure and logistical support, which are common in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as well as military operations, must be self-sufficient. In this paper, we explore the challenges of SS in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Marines engage in a wide variety of expeditionary operations, and must function without logistical support for long stretches of time. They face competing constraints, including the load that a squad can carry, mission requirements, resources required for sustainment, and the extent to which resources can be shared. We extend the knapsack problem in several ways to model a Marine squads decisions regarding what items to carry and how to distribute them. The Office of Naval Research found the models and the results to be significant as baseline analysis for the resource demands of a self-sufficient squad. Though the data and scenarios are USMC-specific, the challenges of SS can be found in any expeditionary undertakings or operations in austere environments.

Stochastic Optimization for Natural Disaster Asset Prepositioning

In past disasters, arrangements have been made to evacuate people without their own transportation, requiring them to gather at select locations to be evacuated. Unfortunately, this type of plan does not help those people who are unable to move themselves to the designated meeting locations. In the United States, according to the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, state or local governments have the responsibility to coordinate evacuation plans for all populations. These include those with disabilities. However, few, if any, have plans in place for those who are mobility-challenged. The problem of evacuating mobility-challenged people from their individual locations in a short-notice disaster is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem. In order to develop the model and select a solution approach, we surveyed related literature. Based on our review, we formulate the problem and develop an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to solve it. We then test two different versions of the ACO algorithm on five stylized datasets with several different parameter settings