Open Access

ARTICLE

Managing Delivery of Safeguarding Substances as a Mitigation Against Outbreaks of Pandemics

by Said Ali Hassan¹, Khalid Alnowibet^2,3, Prachi Agrawal⁴, Ali Wagdy Mohamed^5,6,*

1 Department of Operations Research and Decision Support, Faculty of Computers and Artificial Intelligence, Cairo University, Giza, 12613, Egypt
2 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
3 Traffic Safety Technologies Chair, Vice Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
4 Department of Mathematics and Scientific Computing, National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, 177005, India
5 Operations Research Department, Faculty of Graduate Studies for Statistical Research, Cairo University, Giza, 12613, Egypt
6 School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Wireless Intelligent Networks Center (WINC), Nile University, Giza, Egypt

* Corresponding Author: Ali Wagdy Mohamed. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Role of Computer in Modelling & Solving Real-World Problems)

Computers, Materials & Continua 2021, 68(1), 1161-1181. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2021.015494

Received 24 November 2020; Accepted 23 January 2021; Issue published 22 March 2021

Abstract

The optimum delivery of safeguarding substances is a major part of supply chain management and a crucial issue in the mitigation against the outbreak of pandemics. A problem arises for a decision maker who wants to optimally choose a subset of candidate consumers to maximize the distributed quantities of the needed safeguarding substances within a specific time period. A nonlinear binary mathematical programming model for the problem is formulated. The decision variables are binary ones that represent whether to choose a specific consumer, and design constraints are formulated to keep track of the chosen route. To better illustrate the problem, objective, and problem constraints, a real application case study is presented. The case study involves the optimum delivery of safeguarding substances to several hospitals in the Al-Gharbia Governorate in Egypt. The hospitals are selected to represent the consumers of safeguarding substances, as they are the first crucial frontline for mitigation against a pandemic outbreak. A distribution truck is used to distribute the substances from the main store to the hospitals in specified required quantities during a given working shift. The objective function is formulated in order to maximize the total amount of delivered quantities during the specified time period. The case study is solved using a novel Discrete Binary Gaining Sharing Knowledge-based Optimization algorithm (DBGSK), which involves two main stages: discrete binary junior and senior gaining and sharing stages. DBGSK has the ability of finding the solutions of the introduced problem, and the obtained results demonstrate robustness and convergence toward the optimal solutions.

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Keywords

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