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The purpose of this paper is to describe a case study which can be used as a teaching exercise. This study aims to support students' and/or practitioners' knowledge on line‐haul optimization techniques and their ability to analyze and solve problems on transportation management.

This paper focuses on transportation management processes of a leading company in the sector, Ohio Freight Lines Transportation Inc., and a consultancy firm, A.C. Consultancy Service Inc. Although it is a real case, the name of the company has been omitted due to confidentiality reasons. However, this should not affect the key messages and learning points.

At the end of the case text, ten questions and their potential answers are also provided as a teaching note.

The case study is based on the idea that a firm's efficiency and profitability levels depend on its operational efficiencies.

The purpose of this study is to introduce the concept of social welfare chain and address the challenges in decision making through the development of an optimal planning model for a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The distinctive properties of the social welfare chain and its relationship with the humanitarian relief chain in the context of supply chain management are also discussed. The paper presents a real decision problem and analyzes the managerial impacts of the proposed solution.

The study of social welfare policy and the review of the humanitarian literature has necessitated the introduction of the social welfare chain. Based on its definition, an optimal facility location distribution model that consolidates the non‐integrated style of logistics functions with a cost minimizing approach is developed. The General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) is used in order to optimize the coal distribution model of an NGO. Data is obtained from an NGO that aims to help vulnerable people through distributing coal and basic food such as rice and sugar.

Besides laying the foundations of social welfare chain, an analytical tool for decision support systems of the NGOs can be considered as the major finding of the research. Despite the increased number of stages in the proposed network configuration, the optimal solution resulted in significant cost reduction and distribution efficiency due to the availability of temporary distribution center locations at no extra cost. Furthermore, this study brings out the advantages of using intermodal transportation in the distribution process of cost‐sensitive networks.

This paper provides a detailed analysis that contributes to the efficiency and the effectiveness of social welfare chains. Moreover, it represents a cooperation established between university and NGOs.

The planning efforts of nongovernmental organizations targeting at the periodical aids to improve the social welfare level have received little attention in the literature. This paper is the first to propose the concept of “Social Welfare Chain”, at the same time addressing the distribution planning for the NGO.

This study aims to analyze the epidemic modeling applications and policy‐making strategies for six different infectious diseases in a number of countries, thus comparing and contrasting research in underdeveloped, developing, and developed countries.

A systematic review has been conducted by identifying relevant studies for six diseases from different sources and selecting 74 publications for inclusion. These selected publications are classified and analyzed based on infectious disease, control policies, theme and objective, methodology, origin of population data, publication year and results.

Review results indicate that disaster preparedness and surveillance plans for epidemics are available mostly for developed countries. There is a need for further research in both developing and developed countries because of the ease of dispersion, which constitutes a universal threat. Analysis of the publications suggests that epidemic disasters are mostly studied by researchers in the field of medicine or biology with the aim of assessing the potential impact of an epidemic. The authors highlight the need for further research in operations research and disaster management fields and propose further research directions in the area of disaster management.

This review emphasizes the importance of epidemic disaster modeling for the preparedness stage of disaster management and policy making. Disease and population‐specific intervention policies (e.g. vaccination) reported in this review should set an example and help policy makers during their decision making.

Potential use of the epidemiological modeling on further planning and decision‐making issues in the context of disaster management is studied for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the use of standards and modularity for improving responsiveness in the humanitarian context.

Based on a conceptual framework and a systematic literature review, the authors conducted a longitudinal, explorative case on the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) concept in the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Society (IFRC), focussing particularly on the Health ERU in the Norwegian Red Cross.

The authors found that the ERU concept makes use of many types of standards that complement and influence each other, and that the focus on modularity is increasing due to a growing need for responsiveness. Main challenges are trade-offs between autonomy and adaptability to the context resulting in more modularization which may be in danger of breaking the concept.

Results from this study could be refined by surveying staff involved in all types of ERU deployments. To explore the generalizability of the findings and test the propositions developed, more studies should be conducted.

The study provides more understanding of the use of standards and modularity for improving responsiveness. Practitioners can use the framework as a check-list to identify potential means for improvements. The case can be used for training, discussions, and reflections. The research feeds into IFRC’s and NORCROSS ongoing work to their global response tools.

The results of the study can support improvements in humanitarian supply chains, thereby providing affected people with cost-efficient, rapid, and better-adapted responses.

The authors develop a framework for categorization of standards and modularity in the humanitarian context. The authors provide the first empirical study on how humanitarian organizations use standards and modularity to improve responsiveness concluding with a set of propositions on how the concepts are linked.