Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management

Author(s):  
Stephan M. Wagner

The need for humanitarian assistance is documented in the news on a daily basis. Functioning supply chains are a critical factor in providing disaster relief and humanitarian aid to people in need. Therefore, the humanitarian sector has developed organizations, processes, procedures, and tools that support the specific situation facing this sector, which is in several ways different from a commercial setting. This chapter discusses some challenges of humanitarian operations and supply chain management (HumOSCM) for humanitarian assistance, provides an overview, and lays out some good practices and recent developments of HumOSCM. Better scholarship and practice of HumOSCM will contribute to solving grand challenges as conveyed in the Sustainable Development Goals.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Sakyi Damoah

PurposeThis study explores the critical success factors (CSFs) in humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) by focussing on flood disaster management (FDM) in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth semi-structured interview and questionnaire surveys in a sequential data collection approach were used to collect data from definitive stakeholders of humanitarian organisations. The data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factors analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques.FindingsSeventy-four factors were identified as success factors of HSCM of flood disaster management. However, 41 of these factors were statistically significant and considered as critical. In descending order, these factors relate to management practices, education and training, stakeholder involvement and cooperation, infrastructure, innovation and technology, materials and resources, administrative practices, socio-cultural and economic. Whilst some factors are internal to the humanitarian organisations, others are external factors that are beyond the control of humanitarian organisations.Research limitations/implicationsEven though this study offers empirical results that could guide policymakers in their decision-making about humanitarian operations, care needs to be taken since the data is within one country and within a specific disaster context – hence, policymakers need to consider the local contextual dynamics. Future studies could look at different disasters context to make a comparative analysis of various types of disaster operations.Practical implicationsInstitutions such as World Health Organization, Red Cross organisations and UN seeking to curbs global-warming-related disasters and the reduction of the effects of flood disaster can use findings as a guide during the formulation of HSCM policies and strategies.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies of humanitarian operations that focussed extensively on theoretical expositions, simulations, conceptual frameworks and models, this present study offers empirical evidence of humanitarian operations in the context of SCM. Further, by highlighting on the HSCM CSFs, this study contributes to disaster reduction and their effects on humanity in the context of FDM. This research could be used as guide by governments and FDM organisations to make informed decisions on SCM areas to focus the most during FDM.


Author(s):  
Claudemir L. Tramarico ◽  
Fernando A. S. Marins ◽  
Ligia M. S. Urbina ◽  
Valerio A. P. Salomon

<p>Supply chain management (SCM) is a critical factor in the current global scenario. This organizational capability has a recent knowledge base, which is being accumulated, validated, and certified by groups like the Association for Operations Management (APICS). Therefore, training in SCM has been growing as one of the most convenient ways of becoming “Certified in Production and Inventory Management” (CPIM) from APICS. Companies all over the world have invested in SCM training; however, some companies have conditioned the continuity of their training programs to the benefits assessment. This paper contributes by proposing an evaluation model for specific program training on SCM. This model was applied in a global chemical company, which allowed capturing its impact on organizational and individual competencies, as well as on the core competencies. The proposed model includes the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and concepts in the SCM literature. The main result revealed by this research is that an SCM training based on APICS CPIM is really perceived as beneficial, in individual or organizational terms, for a real-world company. Therefore, this company should be confident that its SCM training program is improving and strengthening its core competencies.</p>


Author(s):  
Jay R. Brown ◽  
Maxim A. Bushuev ◽  
Andrey A. Kretinin ◽  
Alfred L. Guiffrida

In today's supply chains, green and sustainable business practices have become an integral part of long-term strategy as well as the day-to-day operations, and sourcing and logistics play fundamental roles in ensuring the success of sustainable supply chains. In this chapter, we review recent research on three classes of decision models that are used in the logistics and sourcing functions of sustainable supply chains. Specifically, we examine and summarize recent developments in sustainable decision models for supplier selection, inventory lot-sizing, and last-mile delivery. Our review of the green and sustainable features found in these three models results in a single-source consolidation of models used in sustainable sourcing and logistics. This review may prove useful to researchers who focus on sustainable supply chain management and to practitioners who seek to expand their toolkit of models for the management and control of their supply chain.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachin Agarwal ◽  
Ravi Kant ◽  
Ravi Shankar

PurposeThis paper intends to explore and appraise the humanitarian supply chain management enablers (HSCMEs) for efficient and effective humanitarian operations. This research aims to analyze the interaction of enablers for humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) using a proposed hybrid framework consists of fuzzy Delphi (FD), interpretive structural modeling (ISM)–matriced impacts croises multiplication appliquee a un classement (MICMAC) and revised Simos approach.Design/methodology/approachThis research is deliberate to identify 28 HSCMEs through a literature review and experts' opinions; out of which 20 HSCMEs are selected using FD. ISM is applied to know contextual relationship among the selected HSCMEs for developing a hierarchical model. The MICMAC analysis classifies the HSCMEs based on driving power and dependence power to validate the developed hierarchical ISM structure. The revised Simos technique is used to prioritize the HSCMEs to access its relative significance in humanitarian operations.FindingsThe finding of the analysis suggests that government policy and leadership support obtained the highest priority, having high driving power and low dependence power is significantly strategic and emerged as the leading driver for the HSCM implementation.Research limitations/implicationsISM model presents an insight into interrelationship among HSCMEs, but this cannot quantify the impact of each HSCMEs.Practical implicationsDisaster relief aid agencies and stakeholders may focus on the enablers having high driving power and higher weight in designing and executing an effective and efficient humanitarian supply chain and to improve their activities and strategies of HSCM.Social implicationsThis research helps humanitarian logisticians and humanitarian organizations to make better decisions to improve their operational performance in pre and postdisaster phases.Originality/valueThis paper explores the application of proposed hybrid framework to analyze the HSCMEs that can be considered as the original contribution.


Author(s):  
Yasin Galip Gencer

The purpose of this chapter is to explain developments in supply chain management in the global retail business. There are many recent developments which are described in this chapter. As its use is rising in several businesses, we had focused on SCM in retailing business, and this chapter is an enhanced version of that study. Sustainability-related issues have been discussed for many years and the term sustainability has received increased attention in research since the last two decades. This article studies on recent issues and brings an overview of past and current sustainability research in retail applications for examining retailing and sustainability relevance. The article considers supply chain management facilitates and the development of them in both retailing and general supply chain management practices through innovation, expanded product design, globalization, flexibility, process-based management and collaborative working approaches. Ultimately, the study is exampled from retailing businesses and it is concluded by further discussions.


Logistics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Warley Henrique Silva ◽  
Patricia Guarnieri ◽  
José Márcio Carvalho ◽  
Josivania Silva Farias ◽  
Silvia Araújo dos Reis

The incorporation of sustainable aspects in the supply chain management (SCM) has become an important topic for researchers and professionals; however, it is a field that yet lacks a systemic understanding. The objective of this article is to conduct an analysis on the international literature about the SCM sustainability topic, by employing a systematic review protocol, covering the period from 2011 to 2016. The content analysis technique was performed, following the procedures of categorical thematic analysis proposed by Bardin (1977), which considers the creation of categories a posteriori, based in the direction senses related to the content analyzed. Besides to present the main characteristics of the articles related to distribution of publications per year, most studied sectors, main methods and approaches used main countries and journals of publications, we categorize the results at the systemic approach level of the sustainable development dimensions. We found that some dimensions are prominent when compared with the others: For example: the environmental one, on the other hand, the social one is approached few times in the papers considered in our analysis. These results also indicate that this type of discussion needs to be extended to other sectors that have not yet been explored. The contribution of this paper lies on the synthetization of the state-of-the-art related to sustainable SCM in the period considered, highlighting the environmental, social and economic dimensions, in order to identify a research agenda. By identifying possible research gaps, the results of this research contribute to guide future investigations on sustainable SCM, aiding researchers and practitioners in this field.


2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Xiangyang Li ◽  
Charu Chandra

Security management has become a critical topic that supply systems have to handle on a daily basis. An integrated view is not in place yet, despite that related studies have existed in disparate pieces and keep on emerging. This paper seeks an essential paradigm shift to design/management for security (DMfSec) within the context of supply chain management. The first part is devoted to defining a new discipline of security centric supply chain management (SecSCM). We identify its fundamental tasks and requirements aided by a metaphor borrowed from information security. The second part is a discussion of a potential technical roadmap. Vital and integral to this initiative, we firstly propose the referential taxonomy that systematically accounts for security constraints, requirements, instruments and management, and investigate its relationship to underlying supply chain constructs. Secondly, with the taxonomy in hand, we present modeling issues based on dependency representation and probabilistic analysis, which are suitable for security management. Lastly we consider key tasks in DMfSec and SecSCM. With an emphasis on elaboration of challenges and requirements and employing a process and system oriented perspective, this paper intends to start rather than conclude an adventure into this vast interdisciplinary field.


The main purpose of this article is to analyze corporate social responsibility issues in supply chain management implementation. Corporate Social Responsibility is an important activity for organizations to enhance their names socially, economically and environmentally. Analyzing CSR factors in industries is a key and critical factor. This paper aims to present a GREY-DEMATEL approach to identify CSR factors for supply chain management implementation. Nineteen CSR factors were considered from literature surveys and Industry expert’s opinions. A direct relationship matrix among factors was arrived at from two different experts with a sound knowledge of social, environmental and economic backgrounds in the auto components manufacturing sector. GREY-DEMATEL approach was used to examine pivotal relationships among factors of CSR issues in successful supply chain management. Based on the relationship matrix, Industrial Relations, Corporate governance, Feminist labour issues, Discrimination and Energy conservation play a major role among factors. Finally, the study concludes with the limitations and the future work of CSR factors in the supply chain implementation process.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document