Title: A strategic donor-beneficiary assignment problem under supply and demand uncertainties

Authors: Jyotirmoy Dalal

Addresses: Decision Sciences Department, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract: Considering the coexistence of food insecurity and food waste issues in the society, in collaboration with an NPO in India, we develop a novel donor-beneficiary strategic assignment model to connect the students of a set of volunteering schools with a set of habitats having under-nourished children up to 14 years of age, via a social-awareness-raising long-term endeavour. Our two-stage stochastic programming model - by addressing the demand and supply uncertainties using discrete scenarios - determines optimal strategic connections to minimise the associated connection-establishment cost as well as the expected shortage cost at the habitats due to unmet demand. We present a small but realistic test case, conduct a sensitivity analysis to illustrate the underlying trade-offs among various components, and highlight how the decision-maker can adjust system-flexibility by altering certain model parameters.

Keywords: food insecurity; food waste; donor; beneficiary; strategic assignment; supply and demand uncertainty; stochastic programming; scenario; mixed-integer programming model; non-profit organisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2022.121486

International Journal of Operational Research, 2022 Vol.43 No.1/2, pp.188 - 207

Received: 28 Jan 2020
Accepted: 10 Apr 2020
Published online: 16 Mar 2022 *

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