Supply Chain Evaluation On Critical Infrastructure Essential Businesses Using Network Optimization Models

This research study provides an in-depth understanding, on the use of network optimization models to optimize the sales with respect to the inter store supply chain for, essential infrastructure businesses during a pandemic. As per the Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), there are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on the security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof. For the purpose of this study, we are primarily focusing on Healthcare and the Public Health Sector (HPH). This branch is considered as a core sector as it protects the economy from threats such as terrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. This evaluation will provide insights on consumer panicking behaviors with respect to medications, essential items and the effect of adverse changes that were implemented during the pandemic. The study will also monitor multiple trends such as customer count, sales per customer, supply chain of commodities being received at stores and the stock out of products pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. The study will then be used to fit different forecasting models and use the best forecasting model to project the sales and the customer trend for the Annual Year 2021. This research will help us understand the different Network Optimization Models such as the Spanning Tree Model, Cost Flow Model and other Network Simplex Models that can be used to prevent the disruption of inter-store supply chain within a chain of department stores in a district due to a pandemic or other scenario such as riots. A comparative study has been done with different kinds of network optimization techniques to provide an optimized strategic technique for the sustainability of the supply chain by the end of this thesis. The intended result of this research would be to provide the best optimization strategy for multiple stores within a district to run safely with normal inventory levels by ensuring a continuous flow of medication and products between stores.