Humanatarian Supply Chain Management.

When a disaster strikes , Relief Organization respond by delivering aid to those in need, Their supply chain must be both fast and agile , responding to sudden -onset disasters which may occur in various part of the world , there have been numerous large and small scale disaster in the past few years which has caused the attention of international media. Disaster of this magnitude causes donor, beneficiaries and the media to closely monitor how quickly and efficiently relief organizations are able to respond.

A disaster response operation involves trade-offs of speed, cost, and accuracy with regards of the type of goods that are delivered and their quantities. Balancing these trade-offs requires a mean of measuring supply changing performance ; however , the inability to centrally capture time and cost data related to the procurement and distribution of goods has prevented a systematic process of performance measurement from being implemented.

There are various frameworks for commercial logistics distribution while to apply this framework for a non profit disaster humanitarian relief , where not only goods are not just accepted and distributed directly but there are also other kind of relief that comes into picture like Cash & Volunteers for which addition process and steps in the supply chain is required. The framework should be able to deliver the funds, good and help from donor to the beneficiary in a very transparent way and at the fastest time.

Although there will always be a elements of chaos in the immediate days of after a sudden onset disaster , there is a reason to look to the future with optimism , the development of information technology systems that can provide visibility to the disaster relief supply chain is a huge forward for the humanitarian sector as a whole.

Below is an attempt to simply the process of humanitarian supply distribution