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The purpose of this paper is to address the inefficiency problems in procurement operations in disaster relief logistics which are mainly due to the lack of coordination among less organized suppliers and partnerships. Such problems lead to poor responsiveness and hinder timely procurement of required goods.

An auction‐based framework for procurement of goods, which is suitable for a single coordinating platform in disaster relief logistics, is proposed. Integer programming formulations are used in auctioning operations. A simulation model that generates problem instances is used to evaluate and tune system‐level design parameters.

Design parameters greatly affect the behaviour and responsiveness of the system and the performance of the auction‐based framework in different problem instances. Combinations of those parameters may allow suppliers with limited capacities to become more involved in the bidding process. In addition, the procurement shares of bidders may change substantially with different values of the parameters.

Even though the presented framework is inspired from real‐life applications, it is not implemented in real‐life disaster relief operations. The goodness of fit for the framework would best be evaluated by a real disaster case. In addition, transportation scheduling and vehicle routing considerations and budgeting issues are not considered in the framework.

This paper presents an auction‐based framework for less organized suppliers of goods and their partnerships, such as local humanitarian organizations, private companies, and standby partners. The presented framework offers a background for coordination during disaster relief operations which provides opportunities to act as a set of organized entities. This background also helps those entities coordinate their efforts to enhance the capabilities of local governments and NGOs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of freight containers to store relief items instead of operating a permanent warehouse building.

A mathematical model is developed to determine the location and quantity of containers as well as the type and amount of relief supplies to store in order to investigate the practicality of using freight containers for storage. The model is tested using earthquake risk data, estimates of population under risk, and the distances between cities. An experimental study is performed using Turkish Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (abbreviated as AFAD in Turkish) data for total number of relief supplies.

Considering the earthquake risk of possible locations, the results of the study indicate the target locations for containers. The idea of using containers as storage facilities helped beneficiaries to be reached within a short distance and in an efficient way.

The presented model is not implemented in real life disaster relief operations even if it is tested with real earthquake risk, demand and distance data.

To apply this model in practice, the container locations within cities should be determined and managerial operations such as maintenance, environmental, and security planning have to be considered.

This study presents the first analysis of three sub-topics’ intersection: warehousing, pre-positioning in disaster relief, and containerization. To the best of authors’ knowledge, containers have not been considered for storage of relief items in humanitarian logistics before.