Clustering Inventory Locations to Improve the Performance of Disaster Relief Operations

Abstract

One of the most important activities for satisfying relief demand during disaster relief operations is logistic and inventory. To fulfill the relief demand after the disaster, pre-positioning inventory is prepared in each shelter before the disaster. However, their amount of inventory is only enough for fulfilling the demand in short period after disaster. Due to chaotic condition at that moment, relief inventory level at each inventory location (shelter) also vary significantly and some of them may short of important items. In that situation, there is a need to leverage the level of inventory between shelters with lateral transshipment operations. Lateral transshipment within inventory system is a stock movement between locations of relief inventory storage of the same echelon level. In this operation, interconnection between shelters can be assumed as a network having self-supply capability that each of them is able to redistribute stock to their neighboring locations. However, lateral transshipment may contribute to further discrepancy of inventory level if it is not managed carefully. We proposed a method of improving the performance of lateral transshipment operations through cluster formation of shelters before the disaster event occurs. The clusters formation is based on the algorithm of stable roommate problem. To support validity of our model, the numerical simulation of volcanic eruption disaster is used. The results show that the cluster formation contributes to better performance of relief logistic and inventory.