Warehouse location determination for humanitarian relief distribution in Nepal

The use of warehouse for storing emergency relief items has been proven to improve overall responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness of the humanitarian supply chain while decreasing the cost incurred in the process. Driven by the same goals, this study determines the optimal number and locations of warehouses to be placed in different parts of Nepal for a humanitarian relief chain that would respond to sudden-onset disasters. The study utilizes a modified version of the maximal covering location problem which introduces additional constraints that reflect the real scenario of Nepal. The problem is solved using simplex algorithm with branch and bound applied to the relaxed integer. The novelty of this study lies in the introduction of indexes for development, disaster safety and transportation accessibility constraints to reflect socioeconomic, geo-climatic and topographical features of Nepal respectively. Three scenarios are chosen based on coverage distance. The results show the number and spatial locations of warehouses for each scenario, as well as their maximum and minimum coverages.