Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management

Abstract

As the populations affected by manmade and natural disasters are growing, the humanitarian sector has been expanding accordingly, delivering crucial aid. Because supply chain operations comprise the majority of mission budgets, efficient operations and supply chain management are critical to maximizing impact. This course explores the emerging theory and best practices which address this need.

Objective

Upon completion of this seminar, students will be able to differentiate between the commercial and humanitarian operational context and recognize the distinct phases of an intervention. They will be able to assess the humanitarian sector as a system with constrained resources, and analyze logistics and supply chain processes fit to purpose. The course will combine perspectives from research and practice to ensure a realistic and rigorous understanding of humanitarian operations and supply chain management.

Content

The seminar will review the strategies and core processes existing in a humanitarian supply chain, emphasizing how these are different from the commercial context, and explore success factors in practice. The instructional design will combine lectures and readings with videos, reports from the field, simulations and case studies. 1. Introduction to the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS), and the specific requirements of the humanitarian sector, together with what these imply for operations and supply chain management. How does HumOSCM differ from the commercial context? We will review what it means to be a refugee, an IDP, or a person affected by a natural or manmade disaster, the key stakeholders in a humanitarian intervention, current trends in the sector, and the role of the logistics cluster. 2. Humanitarian interventions follow a lifecycle whose distinct phases create different requirements for logistics and other activities. We will review and discuss the characteristics of each phase and their respective strategies as well as fundamental types of intervention (emergency response vs. ongoing missions vs. development projects). 3. The activities in a humanitarian intervention must be understood as a system in which material can only be delivered properly if information flows. We will emphasize how collaboration and coordination are key to successful field operations, and experience the effects of broken feedback loops and poor system design. 4. Review of the core processes of the humanitarian supply chain: procurement, planning (preparedness), transportation (fleet management), inventory management (pre-positioning), donor management and reporting, and performance management. 5. Special topic / deep dive: Applying lean principles to humanitarian operations, with a report from the field. 6. Special topic / deep dive: How technologies (such as retinal recognition, drones, GPS mapping, cash programs), are changing the way aid is delivered, with a report from the field. When considering the impact of technological innovations, we will discuss the importance of process innovations as well.

Resources