A mathematical model for business sector participation in relief logistics

Humanitarian organizations are in the dire need of logistical resources for relief operations. Nevertheless, considering their limited resources, they have to seek to use the logistical capabilities of the business sector in order to improve the humanitarian operations. In this paper, we develop a bi-objective mathematical model for using the logistical capabilities of the business sector in the humanitarian logistics. The first objective function minimizes the logistics costs while the second one minimizes the shortage costs. We consider that suppliers are responsible for procurement of relief items and logistics service providers collaborate with a humanitarian organization by providing storage space for pre-positioning of relief items. The bi-objective model is converted into a single-objective one using the TH method as a well-known interactive fuzzy multi-objective programming approach. Finally, the presented model is validated by conducting several sensitivity analyses. The results emphasis on the effectiveness of collaborating with business sector in relief operations.