
36 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine
Simulation and optimization for rapid response after a disaster
the disaster and classify them into different categories (such
as fire, flood, collapse, injury, death, etc.). Furthermore, the
extracted tweets and posts are contextualized and an aggre-
gate trust score is computed and passed to the analyst to con-
sider when allocating resources. In crisis situations, and when
911 systems become very busy or overwhelmed, social media
platforms become a critical source of information, especially
now that intelligent algorithms can decipher the information
and extract the trustworthy elements of it.
Given the fact that iHELP is deployed on the cloud, there
is no need to install and maintain software on the client side.
Furthermore, the system’s back end implements cloud-based
databases to reliably store information and display the output
on a web front end that uses some of the latest technologies
such as REACT (for visualization on Google maps) and Ja-
vaScript to present statistical output on a web dashboard (as
shown in Figure 3).
Finally, all components communicate via application pro-
gramming interfaces and web services that make communi-
cating with other systems in the future seamless and scalable.
This is especially important for decentralization of data that
may come from various public and private sources.
Validation of the system
Although iHELP has not been used in a real disaster yet, as
it is less than a year old, NATO’s Crisis Management and
Disaster Response Center of Excellence in Sofia, Bulgaria,
was involved throughout the project as an end user. It pro-
vided realistic disaster scenarios to test the system and vali-
date the results based on its staff experience. Its involvement
has greatly contributed to the development of methods and
models that can be used in real-life scenarios.
However, we believe it is necessary to work with other
disaster response organizations such as the U.N. Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Red Cross and
Federal Emergency Management Agency, among others, to
enhance the system’s ability to adapt to various types of sce-
narios.
It is very common for faculty members at universities to
pursue sponsored funding for their research ideas, especially
in the fields of science and engineering. It is less frequent,
however, for university research projects to evolve from basic
and theoretical research to applied research and turn their
work into a solution applicable to real-world problems.
This project is an example of an innovative research pro-
gram that applies principles of industrial engineering and op-
erations research to disaster response and crises management
through open innovation platforms and entrepreneurial ac-
tivity. We hope that not only would iHELP be sustainable
but will also save lives.
Ghaith Rabadi is a professor of engineering management & systems
engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He
is former vice president for R&D at Princess Sumaya University
for Technology in Amman, Jordan (2018-2020). As an entrepre-
neur, he founded POLARes LLC. He received a bachelor’s degree
in industrial engineering from Jordan University, and his master’s
and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Central
Florida. His research interests include planning and scheduling, mod-
eling and simulation, supply chain management and logistics, data
analytics and artificial intelligence. His research has been funded by
different agencies including NASA, NATO, the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, Virginia Port Authority, MITRE, Boeing
and Qatar Foundation. He is the author of two books and more than
100 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles and book chapters.
Contact him at grabadi@odu.edu; grabadi@polaress.com.
FIGURE 3
iHELP visualization front end
JavaScript is used to present statistical output on a web dashboard.