A novel heuristic algorithm for disruption mitigation in a global food supply chain

The Global Food Supply Chain (GFSC) often encounters challenges in maintaining the continuous flow of essential food products such as rice and wheat. In this paper, we consider possible disruptions in supply and transportation in GFSC. Disruptions may cause severe food shortages in some parts of the world. Moreover, a disruption is not necessarily a single independent event, as multiple disruptions may occur sequentially or simultaneously. After any interruption, it is essential to reoptimize the remaining flow activities in a short period under the changed conditions. Although both the initial flow plan and post-disruption plan can be generated by formulating them as Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) models, such a mitigation plan is challenging because of time constraints and when multiple disruptions are considered. To address this issue, we proposed a novel heuristic algorithm that revises the ideal plan in the event of a disruption. The developed heuristic can deal with different types of disruptions, as well as a series of disruptions. The performance of the heuristic was judged by solving 300 problem instances and comparing the results with those obtained from the exact method. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed algorithm in practice, we have solved three real-world disruption Scenarios. The analysis of results uncovered crucial managerial insights, recommending strategies for disruption mitigation, and proved to be an effective method for post-disruption planning.