Humanitarian logistics: Optimize food donations collection and delivery process of food bank Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh city

Abstract

Humanitarian logistics is an interest topic of various researchers and universities for many years. Within the field, food aid is one of the topics that receives more attention after Covid 19 pandemic in Vietnam. During lockdowns and limit access to food period, food bank has played an important role in providing food for the poor around the city. This thesis is aim to develop transportation schedule for Food Bank Vietnam Warehouse in Ho Chi Minh City to both collect food from various collection sites and deliver food aid to humanitarian organizations located around the city in respective to cost effective collection and delivery strategies. Due to limited source of humanity and vehicle, cost effective is translated into the minimum distance travel for the transportation schedule. This thesis proposed satellite locations called co-located sites where Food Bank come to collect food aid and deliver it to humanitarian organizations in packages after sorted in the warehouse. A capacitated set covering model is developed to determine the allocation of an organization to a co-locating site considering vehicle capacity and food spoilage time constraints. Using the optimal assignment of organization to co-locating sites, a weekly collection and delivery transportation schedule to each site is developed regardful of constraints on operator workday, collection frequency, delivery frequency and vehicle capacity