Investigating manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises' immediate response and short-term recovery from flooding using an agent-based approach. (20th May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Alharbi, Meshal; Coates, Graham
• Is Part Of: International journal of simulation and process modelling. Volume 14:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 87
• Page End: 104
• Publication Date: 2019-05-20
• Subjects: small and medium-sized enterprises -- SMEs -- agent-based modelling and simulation -- flooding -- short-term recovery -- manufacturing; Management -- Computer simulation -- Periodicals; Mathematical models -- Periodicals; Operations research -- Periodicals; Simulation methods -- Periodicals; 003.05
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-2123

Abstract

The predominance and economic significance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) means widespread disruption can have severe financial consequences for a nation. This paper presents an agent-based approach enabling simulations to investigate manufacturing SMEs' immediate response to and short-term recovery from a flood event to evaluate the effectiveness of combinations of inundation precautions. Manufacturing SME agents exhibit pre- and post-flood behaviours gleaned from interviews with such businesses that have flood experience. Based on a flood event simulated for Sheffield in the UK, results show an individual SME with most precautions implemented in the lightly or moderately flooded area can return to 100% production approximately 7 days earlier than if the least precautions were employed. Further, considering the average short-term recovery of all SMEs with most precautions implemented in the lightly or moderately flooded area, 100% production can be achieved almost 20 days before manufacturers located in the severely flooded area.