استفاده از گزینه های اعلام شده در مرحله برگزاری مناقصه برای تأمین تجهیزات امداد رسانی

This paper presents an analysis of the bid construction phase of procurement auctions in disaster relief and humanitarian logistics. Substitution and partial fulfillment options are presented in formulations to allow bidders with fewer inventories to offer substitute item types and partial bids in auctions. During the auction announcement phase, a coordinating platform for disaster locations (i.e., auctioneer) allows substitution and partial fulfillment options to the relief suppliers (i.e., bidders) when acceptable. Thus, suppliers with fewer inventories can offer substitute item types and participate in more auctions by partially bidding. A genetic algorithm, a simulated annealing algorithm and an integer program are used for the analysis of the bid construction phase with different announcement options. Heuristic solution techniques and an IP formulation help understand the dynamics of the bid construction problem. It is shown that the addition of substitution and partial fulfillment options is essential to diversify and increase the usable capacity of the supplier base. Additionally, the partial fulfillment option enables better usage of supplier inventories in an environment with scarce supplies.

During the last decade, research on disaster planning and disaster relief logistics has received an increasing interest from many disciplines due to the emerging need for effective relief operations. Many studies have investigated disaster planning and relief logistics [1], [2] and [3] whereas many others have focused on resource allocation and procurement operations in an emergency planning and response context [4], [5], [6] and [7]. Procurement is necessary to have the required goods readily available for the relief operations. Estimates show that 65% of the total disaster relief budget is dedicated to the procurement of relief supplies and equipment [8], which makes it the step in the disaster relief process where the majority of donor funding is spent. In addition, organization of funding mechanisms, donor expectations, diversity of stakeholders, unpredictability of disasters and resource scarcity/oversupply are some of the factors [9] that contribute to the complexity of the procurement operations. This complexity poses important decisions on the type, quantity, timing, source and destination, as well as the method of delivery procuring relief goods. Although a few humanitarian organizations have utilized auction-based approaches in procurement by the help of logistics software [10], [11], [12] and [13], the use of procurement auctions in disaster relief still needs thorough and practical investigations. The practice of Humanitarian Procurement Centres (HPC) of the European Commission (EC) is a practical example for the organized procurement operations when the operations are conducted on behalf of its partners [14]. During a typical procurement operation, first, HPCs receive procurement requests from the partners. Then, they consolidate these requests and conduct the procurement following the principles of ethics, transparency, proportionality, and equal treatment of potential suppliers [15]. This study proposes a procurement auction-based approach for procurement operations in similar environments where a coordinating platform at the disaster location represents the auctioneer and suppliers around the disaster location represent the bidders. Although the number of studies and publications on procurement auctions has increased in recent years [16], this research area could still benefit from the attention of OR/MS practitioners [17]. Besides, most of the research on this topic is in a commercial context and usually concentrates on the auctioneer's perspective. This study focuses on the bidders' perspective in a disaster relief context when there is a coordinating platform which collects needs and conducts the auctions. The motivation for this study is to enable the design of procurement auctions for an effective disaster response. The research question that we seek to answer in this paper is: “What are the specific design parameters for an effective procurement auction in disaster relief setting?” The contribution of this study is that we focus on the suppliers' perspective in a procurement auction and investigate different techniques for the suppliers to construct bids effectively. New procurement auction design parameters are introduced to facilitate following the EC procurement principles and to better utilize suppliers' capacities in a scarce resource environment. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to show that announcement options are beneficial to the suppliers as well as the auctioneer.

Humanitarian and disaster relief logistics involve control, planning, and management of cumbersome operations in a disaster relief environment where short-term crisis management strategies are used to push products out in parallel systems. In order to accomplish these tasks immediately and supply the demand at the disaster locations effectively, the use of procurement auction-based methods has a potential to increase. Coordinating platforms require effective auction models designed specifically for procurement in disaster relief environment. Bid construction and winner determination are the two major phases in typical procurement auctions. In this paper, the bid construction phase is analyzed with a Genetic Algorithm (GA), a Simulated Annealing (SA) Algorithm and an Integer Program (IP). Substitution and partial fulfillment options are presented in formulations to allow bidders with fewer inventories (i.e., local suppliers) to offer substitute types and partially bid in auctions. The results illustrate that inclusion of these options allows local suppliers (i.e., the ones with less on-hand inventory) to bid in procurement auctions, which in return helps the coordinating platform (i.e., auctioneer) attain better diversity and higher capacity in its supplier base. Heuristic solution techniques help understand the dynamics of the bid construction problem and the IP formulation gives a more structured and precise solution. It can be concluded that the number of supply types in an announcement affects the success of the auction positively, because the optimality gap tends to decrease with an increasing number of item types. This result is complementary with case studies in Beall et al. [36], where researchers report that if more items are auctioned together, this gives suppliers more flexibility in determining bid content. Computation time results depict that if there are too many supplies in the auction to manage, the bid construction problem becomes complex. The use of substitution is beneficial both for relief suppliers and the coordinating platform. In this way, suppliers can offer substitute items in place of original supplies and better utilize their on-hand inventory. The auctioneer makes use of this option in cases when a more diverse and higher capacity supply base is desired. It is shown with the proposed quantitative modeling approach that the substitution option is more auspicious for the lower capacity suppliers than the higher capacity suppliers. It is also noted that the determination of a substitute factor is essential in converting the original supply types to substitute types. This factor is for quantities, and if intangible specifications are considered, a substitute factor needs to incorporate those specifications as well. A partial fulfillment option enables better usage of supplier inventories. Relief suppliers are allowed to bid less than the announced quantity, which provides them the opportunity to offer their inventory more quickly rather than waiting for an auction that fits their specific inventory level. If partial fulfillment is not allowed, higher capacity suppliers are more likely to be awarded an auction than lower capacity suppliers. One limitation of using procurement auctions might stem from varying quality of relief supplies that are procured from different bidders. If beneficiaries are exposed to different levels of supply quality, it would be a clear violation of the equity principle. Thus, coordinating platforms should clearly specify the product specifications when announcing the demand.