posted on 2013-03-07, 12:02authored byHuanjia Yang, Lili Yang, Shuang-Hua Yang
Purpose – Various information technologies have been designed to assist with the resource
management of distribution centres in a typical supply chain. But the humanitarian distribution centre
has its own characteristics including hybrid freight types (food, medicine and general living goods, as
well as a need to track rescue equipment, vehicles and on-site staff), destabilized operating
circumstances and swift response to emergencies etc. None of the existing technologies can satisfy all
of these diverse needs and the adoption of several different technologies may lead to higher cost,
slower implementation and more complex integration. This paper seeks to design a hybrid system
architecture at the network level for a resource information management system in humanitarian
logistics centres. The aim of the design is to provide a complete, simple easy-to-implement and
flexible solution for distribution centres in the humanitarian supply chain providing the ability to
monitor all of their resources, including freights, rescue equipment, vehicles and people, as well as the
local environment.
Design/methodology/approach – The characteristics of a humanitarian logistics centre are
investigated to capture the requirements for the design of a resource management system. The
research method used, adheres to the principle of participatory design (PD) where a common
understanding of both the domain demands and the possible solutions across the disciplines can be
achieved and continuously improved through the involvement of the end users. Current technologies
used in the resource management system for general logistics centre are then studied. Two new
concepts, “passive RFID reader as a sensor” and “active tag as a sensor”, are used as basis for the
design of a hybrid RFID sensor network architecture followed by a discussion of the implementation
of such system architecture in a humanitarian logistics centre. A resource management system based
on such architecture was developed and validated in both a laboratory environment and a warehouse
field-trial and the results of these trials are discussed.
Findings – Compared to the old systems, the system using the hybrid RFID sensor network
architecture is able to provide complete information for logistics centre resource management while
the cost, complexity and time required for such a system implementation were significantly reduced as
a result of the simple and flexible network architecture. In addition, the system can easily and quickly
be removed and re-implemented in the event of a possible emergency relocation of the centre.
Originality/value – The design of the hybrid RFID sensor network architecture is unique and the
system development and evaluation have shown the feasibility and value of this approach. The work
has demonstrated the completeness of information that the system can provide, as well as the
flexibility of such a low cost but complete system which can lead to significant improvements in the
overall performance of the humanitarian supply chain.
Keyword: distribution centre; humanitarian supply chain; RFID; Wireless sensor network
History
School
Science
Department
Computer Science
Citation
YANG, H., YANG, L. and YANG, S.H., 2011. Hybrid Zigbee RFID sensor network for humanitarian logistics centre management. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 34 (3), pp.938-948.
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in the Journal of Network and Computer Applications. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2010.04.017