COURSE DESCRIPTION

Numerous tactical decisions must be made in the response to a public health or humanitarian event. Many of these decisions are concerned with the timely and efficient procurement, allocation, and distribution of resources (e.g. funds, supplies, volunteers) through a supply chain. This course will explore methodologies for tactical decision making including procurement and inventory policies, strategies for distribution and allocation of limited resources, and transportation decisions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Tactical & strategic members of Non-governmental organizations
• Private corporations involved in the humanitarian relief efforts
• US Federal government employees
• US State or local government employees
• Humanitarian Foundation members
• TITLES: Program Managers, Director of Field Operations, Disaster Relief Manager, Director of Logistics & Inventory, Logistics Officers

HOW YOU WILL BENEFIT

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Optimize procurement decisions considering key factors affecting inventory policies such as lead time, variability, and product type (e.g., perishable goods).
• Compare and contrast inventory techniques for a single event versus ongoing operations.
• Evaluate resource allocation tradeoffs in response to a health or humanitarian crisis and develop policies for the allocation of scarce resources in alignment with the supply chain network.
• Develop resource allocation strategies in alignment with the supply chain network structure.
• Optimize routing and storage of supplies on the transportation network across time and mitigate bottlenecks.
• Develop strategies for allocating funds incorporating the interdependencies of decisions across time and space.
• Provide immediate impact to their organization through learnings gained from applied and real-world case studies
• Learn to bring NGOs, businesses, and/or government entities together to enhance collaboration, cooperation, and communication
• Discover current trends and procedures to help their organizations and team members get ahead and stay ahead of the curve
• Build a critical knowledge base to make tactical decisions around inventory, routing, and distribution
• Deliver best-practices to measure and evaluate outcomes of humanitarian relief efforts
• Ultimately transform the humanitarian sector with increased capacity to participate in planning and strategic decision-making for effective supply chain management

WHAT IS COVERED

Pre-Course Activities (4.5 hrs) - Online via MoodleRooms
Classroom Activities (2.5 days) - Georgia Tech Global Learning Center
Post-Course Activities (3.5 hrs) - Online via MoodleRooms

NOTE: Pre-course and post-course activities will conducted online using the MoodleRooms online learning management system. Access instructions will be provided to registrants when details become available.

Pre-Course Activities - Conducted online via MoodleRooms

• Inventory – 3.5 hours
• Resource Allocation – 1 hour

Classroom Activities

Post-Course Activities - Conducted online via MoodleRooms

• Inventory – 1 hour
• Resource Allocation – 1.5 hours
• Transportation Decisions – 1 hour

COURSE MATERIALS

Participants receive readings, case studies, spreadsheet files, and lecture slides, and will be given access to the pre- and post-course web-based activities.

STUDENT REQUIREMENTS

Students need a laptop with Microsoft Excel and the ability to connect to a high-speed internet connection (internet access is provided for onsite portions of course).

COURSE PREREQUISITES

None.

COURSE INSTRUCTORS

Dr. Swann is currently focused on the modeling and analysis of problems and algorithms in logistics, transportation and supply chain management. She has particular interests in developing and analyzing tools to manage demand, such as pricing, revenue management, or lead-time quotation, to increase the flexibility in the system and is currently doing work in humanitarian supply chains. Other research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy.

She was awarded an NSF CAREER grant in 2004, and recently, one of her papers was selected as a Finalist in the Shepherd award at the CDC. In 2002, she received the Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Council of Logistics Management and was a Finalist in the Dantzig Doctoral Dissertation Competition at INFORMS. In 2006 she was inducted into the Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni of Georgia Tech.

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Dr. Özlem Ergun is an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Ergun's research focuses on the design and management of large-scale networks. Specifically, she studies logistics and communications networks that are dynamic, partially decentralized, and are used and operated by coordinating but selfish entities. Her main research contributions are the development of a set of new algorithmic and analytical tools and their applications to important real world problems. She is also a co-founder and co-director of the The Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics at the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in optimization and logistics. Dr. Ergun was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2003.

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Pinar Keskinocak is an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Associate Director of Research for the Health Systems Institute, and the co-director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics at Georgia Institute of Technology. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees in industrial engineering from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and a Ph.D. in operations research from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Keskinocak's research focuses on supply chain management, with an emphasis on resource allocation, revenue management, auctions/pricing, due date/lead-time decisions, production planning/scheduling, and logistics/transportation. She is also actively engaged in research and applications in healthcare and humanitarian logistics.

Dr. Keskinocak is an associate editor of Management Science and IIE Transactions, a senior editor of Production and Operations Management (POMS), and on the editorial board of Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management. She is one of the founding members of the INFORMS-JFIG (Junior Faculty at Informs) group and has served as the president of JFIG.

CERTIFICATE INFORMATION

This course counts as two points towards the Health and Humanitarian Logistics Certificate.

PROGRAM TIMES

On the first day, please check in at least 30 minutes before the class start time.

• First Day (8:30am-5:30pm)
• Second Day (8:30am-5:30pm)
• Third/Last Day (8:30am-5:30pm)

HEALTH AND HUMANITARIAN LOGISTICS SERIES APPROACH TO EDUCATION

The Georgia Tech Health and Humanitarian Logistics Professional Certificate Program is an executive education program designed for practitioners in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government, industry, and military who are active participants in humanitarian operations including disaster relief, long term development and public health operations. The courses are developed for practitioners seeking to build skills to improve decision making in preparedness, response operations planning, and system design. Courses include many interactive components, such as case studies and games, which help professionals in the humanitarian world to link the challenges and decision-making tradeoffs they face in practice with the systematic approaches, tools, and techniques presented.

The courses in this series are designed for professionals and managers across the entire supply chain (procurement, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, warehousing, and retail) who need university-based education and credentials to prepare them for increasing responsibilities in logistics and supply chain management.

Every effort is made to present the course as advertised herein; however, circumstances may make it necessary to alter the schedule and/or presenters.

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