Conference tutorial
Humanitarian and development organisations often need to estimate access to services, understand how road networks are used, and identify suitable locations for new facilities. This hands-on tutorial introduces a custom-built analytical toolkit created specifically for the session. It draws on selected methods and lessons from real-world projects and applications undertaken for organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the World Bank. Using a realistic case study, participants will work through an integrated workflow in which the required spatial and network data are downloaded and prepared by the tools. The emphasis will be on practical application rather than detailed mathematical theory.
Participants will first determine geographic accessibility to a set of health facilities. They will then use road criticality and population-flow methods to gain insight into the relative use and importance of different routes within the study area.
The main part of the tutorial will address multi-objective facility location optimisation using NSGA-II-based code. Participants will explore objectives suited to humanitarian contexts, where decisions may involve considerations beyond maximising population coverage. The tutorial will also consider backup coverage, as well as practical placement constraints for greenfield planning and for adding facilities that complement an existing service network.
By the end of the tutorial, participants will have completed a workflow spanning automated data acquisition, accessibility and road-network analysis, and facility location optimisation. All code will be provided, allowing attendees to adapt the tools to their own study areas and decision problems.
From Access to Action
Practical Geospatial Analysis and Facility Location for Humanitarian Decision-Making
Dr Heyns is a geospatial and operations research specialist working at the intersection of humanitarian logistics, accessibility modelling, and spatial decision support. He holds a BEng, MSc, and a PhD in Operations Research from Stellenbosch University, where he is currently a Senior Researcher. His academic work focuses on multi-objective facility location optimisation and its application in complex, real-world environments. He is a two-time recipient of ORSSA's Tom Rozwadowski Medal for his facility location research, including wildfire detection optimisation using operations research methods.
He has extensive international experience as both a researcher and field practitioner. He has worked as a Logistics Manager and GIS specialist in a wide range of humanitarian emergencies, with deployments across multiple regions globally, including the Central African Republic, Sudan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and Bangladesh. In these contexts, he has supported operational decision-making under highly constrained and rapidly evolving conditions, combining on-the-ground logistics expertise with advanced spatial analysis.
He currently collaborates with organisations such as the World Bank and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and works closely with the University of Edinburgh. His work focuses on developing scalable, data-driven methods for modelling geographic accessibility, analysing infrastructure vulnerability, and optimising the placement of critical services. He has also applied his research to conservation and anti-poaching contexts, and holds anti-poaching ranger certification.
