Optimization and Simulation Modeling of Disaster Relief Supply Chain: A Literature Review

Recent natural and man-made disasters underscore the need of a resilient and agile disaster relief supply chain to mitigate the damages and save people’s lives. Optimization and simulation modeling have become powerful and useful tools to help decision makers tackle problems related to disaster relief supply chain. This paper reviews optimization and simulation models used in the field of disaster relief supply chain. We review the literature of the facility location optimization problems of disaster relief supply chain under different types of disastrous events. We review the literature of simulation models on supply chain design and disaster relief distribution operations. Finally, we propose two future research directions for disaster relief supply chain modeling.