For this case history where we are unable to use the name of the charity. This is because it was deemed that since the optimisation we did for them exposed performance issues in many activities over a period of about 20 years should and could have been better. Though this could not have been reasonably said to be the charity's fault, as they had not previously had the opportunity to learn about optimisation practices, it could nevertheless have been embarrassing to them and their brand, so I have guaranteed their anonymity.
The charity is a smallish one, with a warehouse in the SE of England, convenient to the main freight ports and airports, and with a small number of staff on the ground in Africa, working on ongoing projects; and also in the UK, administrating, fundraising, being ready to act, and in warehouse management.
When a disaster strikes to which they are equipped to respond, they have to be efficient. If they suddenly find they have to respond to an emergency in West Africa, there are lives on the ground to be saved. Depending on the nature of the disaster, the numbers affected, the location, weather, and likely a number of other factors too, they need to tailor their immediate response and it is of course imperative they get it right.
Not only do they need to get it right, but they also need to get it right now. Tomorrow is too late: The container they will have been offered, to be filled by them as best they can and the freight space they'll be offered will have sailed.
Through a network of emails and tweets, sponsors are mobilized. One offers a container, to be delivered today and a place is booked on a freighter late the next day. The charity has the job of filling the container with the most appropriate mix of products from their stocks in the warehouse and on short delivery that will save most lives according to the specifics on the ground in Africa.
Here lies the problem. Water is vital, but too much water and two-thirds of the freighter will be empty because of the weight limit. Too many sleeping bags and half the weight capacity is wasted and the container is full. Too many of anything and other vital items are missed out: tents, emergency rations, first aid kits water purifiers -- the list is long. 20 years of experience tell them to guess well and they do a good job, but always, it has worried them: could they do better, especially in the vital days of first response and the week after. We can perform this optimisation, accurately and in a couple of hours.
Fundraising kicks in and a week later, the question is different. How do they best spend £150,000 that has been pledged or raised? More containers are offered. Airfreight is provided, and further shipping space becomes available. This is where it gets difficult. Feedback from staff on the ground change the rules as to what is needed.
From the first freighter to spending the donations raised we can help. Profit is not what we optimise here -that would be ridiculous. In fact, money becomes a constraint and later part of a “what if” problem. The charity first has to convert its rule of thumb to allocate stocks to shipping, giving a score to each and every product they stock or could buy, relating to how many lives it can save immediately, in a few days and a week down the line. Then, after fund-raising, the situation will have changed again and they will need to recalibrate their calculations according to conditions in the disaster zone.
We can optimise this packing of aid into a limited space with a limited load limit. We can calculate how much is needed for water (an immediate need in a dry area or where the fresh water supply is contaminated) such that the remaining space can be used for other lighter items. How many tents. How many sleeping bags. How many mosquito nets, how many first aid kits. The answers depend on the need, on what is in the warehouse, on what can be ordered and delivered in 12 hours. We do that calculation in about a couple of hours.
What we've seen is a 40% improvement in potential lives saved, through optimally packing freight provisions with this particularly critical goal in mind. Then we saw a similar improvement in answering the question “How best to spend funds raised?”
Yes, it caused some small embarrassment because a few old pre-conceptions went out of the window, but the reader must remember that if these hard-working charity staff had not been doing what they have done for 20 years scores of people would have died. No-one would want to tarnish the image of a crucial humanitarian organisation over a solution which was at the time beyond their reach simply because they did not know about it. All that we have done is use modern LP and optimisation to squeeze every “life saved” out of each pound or dollar donated and every cubic meter or kilogram load available on the shipping container(s) they have for their use.
