Development of a decision support system to facilitate multi-criteria decision making during humanitarian operation within a project life cycle

Abstract

The use of decision support systems is an important part of supply chain management. Quick and adequate decision making is sometimes difficult to achieve. Three issues arise: how to gather relevant data and use past experiences, how to make the decision when many criteria have to be taken into account and how can we ensure that the decision making process is quick. Those three issues are currently faced by many companies and some solutions have already been proposed in the literature. Yet, in some cases, it is difficult, if not possible to apply those solutions. Humanitarian organizations, for example, have difficulties to build on past experiences. Quick decision making in this sector is vital. The purpose of this paper is to design and develop decision-making tool to support the performance of humanitarian logistics. A case study at the French Red Cross will validate this proposal.