Name the unit
One person’s ration is one indivisible box with one destination.
CareSpace allocation framework · POC
The Indivisible Box.
Allocating goods when space, not stock, is the wall. CareSpace uses a whole-ration unit to decide where food can land, how fairly to distribute a wave, and whether the next intervention should be food or storage.
The reframe
Coverage first.
Space tells us why.
Utilization is the medium, not the objective. A box parked in a full freezer feeds nobody, so the model maximizes people covered while treating real capacity as a hard limit. The dashboard turns that limit into a decision instead of hiding it inside a utilization percentage.
Framework · seven steps
In order, because
the order is load-bearing.
Each step removes a source of over-shipping or false capacity before the next step begins.
Count every wall
Dry shelf, freezer, pallet, van, and staff capacity can bind together.
Take the minimum
A site’s box capacity is the smallest whole-box capacity across dimensions.
Subtract current state
Free space and residual need begin with inventory already on hand.
Raise the waterline
Spread the available wave by coverage ratio until a site hits its cap.
Read the binding wall
Supply-bound means food; capacity-bound means storage; met means stop.
Treat capacity as a rate
Re-measure as inventory leaves because yesterday’s free space decays.
The mathematics
Two equations do most of the work.
STEP 03 · WHOLE-BOX CAPACITYcj = mink ⌊ Ajk / vk ⌋
STEP 04 · RESIDUAL NEEDnj = max(0, dj − hj)
STEP 05 · WATER-FILL PROGRAMmaximize ⟨ Σ xj, min xj/nj ⟩
SUBJECT TOΣ xj ≤ B · xj ≤ cj · xj ≤ nj · xj ∈ ℤ≥0
Worked example · illustrative data
Five agencies, 30,000 boxes to place.
Example inputs: 93,500 boxes of residual need, 120,000 dry-space box capacity, 47,000 cold-space box capacity, and a 30,000-box wave.
| Agency | Need | Dry cap | Cold cap | Box cap | Ship | Coverage | Binding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 28,000 | 30,000 | 12,000 | 12,000 | 9,761 | 34.9% | Supply |
| B | 25,000 | 40,000 | 8,000 | 8,000 | 8,000 | 32.0% | Space |
| C | 17,000 | 10,000 | 18,000 | 10,000 | 5,927 | 34.9% | Supply |
| D | 14,000 | 25,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 21.4% | Space |
| E | 9,500 | 15,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | 3,312 | 34.9% | Supply |
| Network | 93,500 | 120,000 | 47,000 | 39,000 | 30,000 | 32.1% | — |
Diagnosis
The answer tells you
what to do next.
The allocation is only half the output. The binding constraint is the operational recommendation.
Worst-served agency
Agency D is at 100% of its space. More food will not fix it; it needs a freezer.
Boxes of atomicity loss
Capacity exists but cannot be reached because a box will not split across sites.
Dry space idle
Low utilization can be correct when cold storage is the binding dimension.
One m³ of cold at D
The network floor rises when new capacity is added at the constrained site.
POC boundary: the worked example is computed from illustrative agency records. Replace those records with verified San Diego County capacity, inventory, need, and outflow data before using the framework for operational dispatch.