Sequential Resource Allocation for Nonprofit Operations

Abstract

This paper studies a sequential resource allocation problem motivated by distribution operations of a nonprofit organization. The alternate objectives that arise in nonprofit, as opposed to commercial, operations lead to new variations on traditional problems in operations research and inventory management. Specifically, we consider the problem of distributing a scarce resource to meet sequentially observed customer demand. In a commercial setting, the amount distributed to each customer is determined to maximize profit; however, this objective may lead to inequitable distributions among customers. Our work in a nonprofit setting solves the sequential resource allocation problem with an objective function aimed at equitable and sustainable service. We define service in terms of fill rate (the ratio of the allocated amount to observed demand) and develop an objective function to maximize the expected minimum fill rate among customers. Through a dynamic programming framework, we characterize the structure of the optimal allocation policy for a given sequence of customers. In addition, we address customer visitation sequencing by identifying properties to consider in sequencing decisions to optimize the objective. For both inventory allocation and customer sequencing decisions, we develop heuristic methods which yield near-optimal solutions.

Analysis and prediction of food donation behavior for a domestic hunger relief organization

“…This is especially true for food aid supply chains since demand is typically larger than supply [26,27]. As a result, significant attention has been given to improving distribution practices through vehicle routing for food collection and delivery [28,29,30,31], allocation of scarce supply [32,33], and location of distribution points [34]. In these studies, supply quantities are either not explicitly considered [30,31] or assumed known and available at the time of distribution decisions [29,32,33].…”

Surface vs. Air Shipment of Humanitarian Goods under Demand Uncertainty

“…(), and Lien et al. (). In order to examine the impact of fair allocation, let z f denote the fair allocation of humanitarian goods through surface shipment; each country is served a quantity based on the equal service level designated with z f .…”

A periodic location routing problem for collaborative recycling

“…Operations research literature on hunger relief operations has been growing, focusing on food distribution: Bartholdi et al (1983), Gunes et al (2010), Yildiz et al (2012), Mahadevan et al (2013), Balcik et al (2014) and Lien et al (2014). Notably, Solak et al (2014) models a single period LRP for food distribution, with decisions including locating food delivery sites, assigning agencies to those delivery sites, and routing vehicles to those sites from a central food bank.…”