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" A Flexible Framework for the Equitable, Efficient and Effective Distribution of Donated Food "
Islam, Md. Hafizul
Das, Anupam
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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1110182
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2478002922
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| Main Entry
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Das, Anupam
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Islam, Md. Hafizul
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| Title & Author
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A Flexible Framework for the Equitable, Efficient and Effective Distribution of Donated Food\ Islam, Md. HafizulDas, Anupam
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| College
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North Carolina State University
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| Date
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2020
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| student score
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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169
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| Abstract
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Food insecurity affects more than 41 million people annually in the United States. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 12.3% of U.S. households were food insecure at some point in 2016.Within the Feeding America (FA) network, approximately 200 food banks are working throughout the US to serve people in need with donated food. The food donation distribution system of a food bank is complex as a food bank tries to reach as many people in need as possible and maximize the donations distributed within their capacitated network. A guideline for equitable distribution imposed by FA increases the complexity of this already complicated problem for a food bank. As some of these objectives of a food bank conflict with each other, there is a need to study the interplay between these major goals of a food bank and develop an optimal food distribution decision framework balancing these primary objectives of a food bank. This dissertation develops mathematical models to identify equitable, effective and efficient distribution policies for donated food. In Chapter 2, we develop a deterministic mixed-integer linear programming assignment and distribution model that identifies the efficient assignment of supply (food donations) to the distribution centers of the food bank. The model also provides managerial insights for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina for efficient utilization of the branches’ capacity for receiving donations from the donors. Chapter 3 extends the deterministic model developed in Chapter 2 by incorporating flexibility in shipping donations to different branches from the local donors, distributing donations from different branches to counties, and the use of full truckloads for shipping food. We investigate the interplay between the efficient and effective distribution of donated food for variable transportation cost and capacity of the trucks used for shipping food. In Chapter 4, we introduce the Last Truck Problem (LTP) to improve the performance of the model solutions presented in Chapter 3. We focus on the problem of distributing donations to the counties under perfect equity. Analysis suggests that distribution according to the demand proportion of the counties with available receiving capacity minimizes the total inequity generated in the system. In Chapter 5, we extend the model presented in Chapter 3 to introduce the concept of sharing the truck capacity across different food groups. We propose two different modeling approaches - one with separate equity constraints for each food group under consideration and the other with an aggregated equity constraint across food groups. We compare the optimal distribution decisions for each food group according to the two approaches presented in this study along with the results obtained in Chapter 3 where dedicated truck capacity is used to ship each type of food. Results suggest that considering shared truck capacity improves the efficiency of the model solution while a combined equity constraint also improves the effectiveness of the model solution with a slight sacrifice in efficiency.
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| Subject
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Industrial engineering
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Sociology
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