Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Safety Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/safety A spreadsheet-based decision support tool for temporary-disaster-response facilities allocation Fatih Cavdur ⁎ , Asli Sebatli-Saglam, Merve Kose-Kucuk Bursa Uludag University, Department of Industrial Engineering, Nilufer 16059, Bursa, Turkey ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Disaster operations management Humanitarian logistics Facility allocation Relief supplies distribution Decision support systems Mathematical programming ABSTRACT In this study, we present a spreadsheet-based decision support tool for allocating temporary-disaster-response facilities for relief supplies distribution. The tool developed in this study mainly consists of three main com- ponents as its database, decision engine and user interface. We develop the tool to run on a spreadsheet en- vironment rather than producing a standalone application by aiming at providing more convenience for the user to perform tasks such as data manipulation and reporting. The paper also presents an example case for illus- tration. The tool allows the user (i.e., decision makers) to allocate temporary-disaster-response facilities under many different after-disaster situations (scenarios) considering the possible uncertainties to occur after a disaster (i.e., different affected population rates, planning periods etc.). Although we present some example cases in the paper for illustration purposes, the flexibility of the tool allows its users to consider other cases with many other scenarios. The tool can be used to help decision makers for allocating temporary-disaster-response facilities for planning relief supplies distribution operations. 1. Introduction Solving the challenging problems in Disaster Operations Management (DOM) requires the consideration of many stakeholders under time pressure, risk and uncertainty. It is noted from past ex- periences that poor management of disaster response operations in- creases the unwanted effects of disasters even more as in the case of Hurricane Katrina (Rolland et al., 2010). It is thus very important to utilize information technologies for decision makers in governmental and other relief organizations by developing sophisticated decision support systems to achieve more efficiency in disaster response and reduce such unwanted effects. Allocating disaster-response facilities for relief supplies distribution is one of the most important problems in DOM gaining the attention of many researchers recently as noted in the literature review of the next section. It is also noted that some main problem characteristics are common in these studies, however, some variations are also observed due to the specifications of the corresponding problem considered, such as the one considered in this study; allocating Temporary-Disaster- Response (TDR) facilities for relief supplies distribution. In allocating such facilities, it is aimed at providing relief supplies to disaster victims for a short time period or temporarily (hence the name temporary- disaster-response facilities) until some relief organizations arrive at the affected area motivated by the fact discussed in the following para- graph. It is very important to provide relief supplies to disaster victims since the survivors without any serious injuries might suffer due to the after-disaster conditions. Unfortunately, it is noted in some of the past disasters that great causalities might occur due to such after-disaster conditions among the survivors. It is just because the victims are not able to reach water, food and other necessary emergency supplies since it is not usually possible for relief organizations to reach the affected area in a timely manner, especially after a large-scale disaster, due to the chaotic after-disaster conditions as well as the damages caused by the disaster. Utilizing some local facilities (i.e., TDR facilities) to pro- vide relief supplies to disaster victims temporarily right after the dis- aster might thus produce great benefits in reducing the unwanted ef- fects of a disaster by satisfying the basic humanitarian needs of disaster victims in the short term. It is however a challenging task to allocate such facilities efficiently as detailed in the following sections of the paper where a sophisticated tool might make important contributions in the decision making process. We also note that the management of such facilities is usually handled by local administrations rather than some central-govern- mental organizations due to the fact that it might be more preferable to employ a decentralized management scheme to improve the efficiency https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.104581 Received 14 February 2019; Received in revised form 27 October 2019; Accepted 15 December 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: fatihcavdur@uludag.edu.tr (F. Cavdur). Safety Science 124 (2020) 104581 0925-7535/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T