55 Research on last mile distribution of emergency medical supplies in earthquake disasters

Objectives A model based on time and cost is proposed in order to quantitatively study last mile distribution of emergency medical supplies. Because cost is not particularly important in the distribution of emergency medical supplies in earthquake disasters, but time should be considered, the MAGTD (multi-attribute grey target decision) strategy was proposed. The novel method of cloud computing is proposed to solve the problem of minimizing delivery time while maximizing loading rate in the distribution of emergency medical supplies. Methods The distribution model for an earthquake disaster region is divided into direct and indirect parts, and the characteristics of emergency medical supplies are summarized and analyzed. Secondly, the AHP-OWA operator based on cloud computing is constructed to evaluate the importance of the emergency medical supplies. Finally, the last mile delivery risk assessment model is established. Results The use of the experimental examples and comparison with the existing algorithm shows that the proposed cloud computing method can deliver the optimal solution in a shorter period for emergency medical supplies distribution in earthquake disasters. Conclusions The proposed method needs less time and the loading rate is higher for last mile distribution than other existing algorithms to help minimize further problems following destructive earthquakes. Acknowledgments This research was financially supported by Liaoning Social Planning Fund, China (Grant No. L16BGL008), National Natural Science Foundation, China (Grant No. 51579024), and Dr scientific research fund of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 201601244).