An Agile and Flexible Supply Chain for Efficient Humanitarian Logistics in a Disaster Management System
An Agile and Flexible Supply Chain for Efficient Humanitarian Logistics in a Disaster Management System
B.R. Raghukumar, Ashish Agarwal, and Milind Kumar Sharma
Introduction
The term “disaster” is usually applied to a breakdown in the normal functioning of a
community that has a significant adverse impact on people, their works, and their
environment, overwhelming local response capacity. Alexander (1993) defines
natural disaster as some rapid, instantaneous, or profound impact of the natural
environment upon the socioeconomic system. He also recommends Turner’s (1976)
definition of natural disaster as “an event, concentrated in time and space, which
threatens a society or subdivision of a society with major unwanted consequences
as a result of the collapse of precautions which had previously been culturally
accepted as adequate.” There were 6,637 natural disasters between 1974 and 2003
worldwide, with more than 5.1 billion affected people, more than 182 million
homeless, and more than 2 million deaths and with a reported damage of 1.38
trillion USD (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of the Disasters – CRED
2004). The September 11 attacks (2001), tsunami in South Asia (2004), Hurricane
Katrina (2005), earthquakes in Pakistan (2005) and Java (2006), and cloudbursts in
Leh (2010) and Uttarakhand (2013) are just some examples of the deadliest
disasters witnessed by humankind in the past few years. As per data of WHO
Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED 2004),
in the year 2011 more than 30,770 people were killed, 244.7 million people were
affected, and the economic loss was US$ 366.1 billion due to natural disasters. The
consequences of these events are colossal even if one considers only human lives
and destroyed homes and families. But when the entire situation is studied in
holistic manner, taking into account the havoc wreaked on the states, the socioeconomic
impact becomes unfathomable. Disasters can be grouped into two main
categories: natural and man-made disasters (CRED 2004).
Natural disasters are the consequences of natural hazards that affect people, whereas man-made disasters
are caused by human actions. Though no disaster can be avoided entirely (especially
natural ones), the mitigation of the situation is possible with an emergency
team and suitable planning. Disaster response supply chain is a function of the
geographical location where disaster takes place, nature of disaster, suppliers,
actual need of the community, organizations who are working there, available
information, government policies, local culture, etc. (Dash et al. 2013). It can be
seen easily that the management of disaster relief and the logistics requires different
techniques at different levels. In disaster relief the eventual purpose of the emergency
supply chain is to deliver the right products and services to the right people or
destination at the right time. Cost and information confidentiality are both secondary.
This makes the quick setup and quick response of an emergency SC possible
(Douglas et al. 2005). The establishment of a SC in any disaster is characterized
always by two factors. Firstly, this task is going to be at a short notice with
minimum of resources: man, material, transportation, location, and power/communications
(Table 9.1).
Secondly, the cost implications of the type of SC will play a major role in
affecting all SC strategies irrespective of the availability of the resources. In the
past, firm performance on disaster preparedness was poor, as noted by Helferich
and Cook (2002). No matter the type of disaster, the management of these events
typically follows four sequential stages (CRED 2004): mitigation, preparedness,
response, and recovery. The various stages of the disaster are as shown below in
Table 9.2. SCs link the sources of “supply” (suppliers) to the owners of “demand”
(end customers) (CRED 2004). In a typical humanitarian SC, governments and
NGOs are the primary parties involved. After the primary phase in the secondary
phase, which may be from few days to several weeks, other agencies such as
military, local donors, international agencies, media, industries, and private volunteer
agencies are typically involved.
The military agencies are an entity which in an Indian scenario forms the
backbone of the entire SC network. The affected parties become the customers in
the disaster SC parlance in comparison with a traditional SC. The elements of the
SC’s main responsibility thus become “the fastest and accurate means of ensuring
the supplies reach the affected parties or customers.”
Logistic Necessities in Disaster Management
The Yokohama message emanating from the international decade for natural
disaster reduction in May 1994 underlined the need for an emphatic shift in the
strategy for disaster mitigation (Yokohama 1994). The Yokohama Strategy also
emphasized that disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness are better than
disaster response in achieving the goals and objectives of vulnerability reduction.
Disaster response alone is not sufficient as it yields only temporary results at a very
high cost. Much of the research in the disaster management field is targeted to
public servants, government agencies, and insurance firms charged with responding
in times of crisis and has traditionally focused on crises such as hurricanes,
earthquakes, flooding, and fires (Iakovou and Douligeris 2001; Witt 1997; Warwick
1995; McHugh 1995; Hale and Moberg 2005). Drabek and McEntire conducted a
literature review to evaluate the impact of emergent phenomena in disasters and the
coordination of multiple organizations responding to crises (Drabek and McEntire
2003). Research has found that humans behave in a compassionate manner during
disasters without much panic or antisocial behavior immediately after the crisis
(Fischer 2002). The Columbia-Wharton/Penn Roundtable on “Risk Management
Strategies in an Uncertain World” took place in April 2002 (Hale and Moberg
2005). With the support of the Council of Logistics Management, Helferich and
Cook (2002) and Hale and Moberg (2005) completed perhaps the most comprehensive
review of supply chain security in the aftermath of September 11. One
valuable part of their management report is an annotated bibliography of disaster
planning and emergency response research and articles from the previous 25–30
years (Hale and Moberg 2005).
The vast majority of articles in this comprehensive bibliography come from the
business trade press, research in the disaster planning and management literature,
and guidelines developed by government agencies such as FEMA. Federal EmergencyManagement
Agency (FEMA) is the primary organization for preparedness and response to federal-level disasters in the United States.
The resulting white paper and research report provides managers with a thorough review of current
research, offers a detailed process for development of a disaster management plan
for the supply chain, and includes detailed information on resources, web pages,
and government reports that can be used by managers while implementing
disaster management plans (Hale and Moberg 2005). The above research notwithstanding,
there is still felt a requirement for more research in the areas of the
SC management in terms of warehousing, SC risk mitigation, SC flexibility and
agility, etc., which are only some of the areas which immediately demand
concern.
Existing Literary Resources
Logistics typically refers to activities that occur within the boundaries of a single
organization, and SCs refer to networks of companies that work together and
coordinate their actions to deliver a product to market. In this context a disaster
response SC model can be visualized as given in the Fig. 9.1.
Any disaster management SC has uncertainty as inherent part of the organization.
This uncertainty removal process consists of various compartmentalization of
the processes as shown in Fig. 9.1. However it is pertinent to note that the reasoning
of the disaster response chain to the causes of the disaster is less important than the
response itself while addressing the gargantuan issues as posed by any disaster. This
shall be addressed later in this paper, where structural changes to the present
organizational tree are discussed as a proposed model.
B.R. Raghukumar, Ashish Agarwal, and Milind Kumar Sharma
 |
| Supply Chain for Efficient Humanitarian Logistics in a Disaster Management System |
Introduction
The term “disaster” is usually applied to a breakdown in the normal functioning of a
community that has a significant adverse impact on people, their works, and their
environment, overwhelming local response capacity. Alexander (1993) defines
natural disaster as some rapid, instantaneous, or profound impact of the natural
environment upon the socioeconomic system. He also recommends Turner’s (1976)
definition of natural disaster as “an event, concentrated in time and space, which
threatens a society or subdivision of a society with major unwanted consequences
as a result of the collapse of precautions which had previously been culturally
accepted as adequate.” There were 6,637 natural disasters between 1974 and 2003
worldwide, with more than 5.1 billion affected people, more than 182 million
homeless, and more than 2 million deaths and with a reported damage of 1.38
trillion USD (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of the Disasters – CRED
2004). The September 11 attacks (2001), tsunami in South Asia (2004), Hurricane
Katrina (2005), earthquakes in Pakistan (2005) and Java (2006), and cloudbursts in
Leh (2010) and Uttarakhand (2013) are just some examples of the deadliest
disasters witnessed by humankind in the past few years. As per data of WHO
Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED 2004),
in the year 2011 more than 30,770 people were killed, 244.7 million people were
affected, and the economic loss was US$ 366.1 billion due to natural disasters. The
consequences of these events are colossal even if one considers only human lives
and destroyed homes and families. But when the entire situation is studied in
holistic manner, taking into account the havoc wreaked on the states, the socioeconomic
impact becomes unfathomable. Disasters can be grouped into two main
categories: natural and man-made disasters (CRED 2004).
Natural disasters are the consequences of natural hazards that affect people, whereas man-made disasters
are caused by human actions. Though no disaster can be avoided entirely (especially
natural ones), the mitigation of the situation is possible with an emergency
team and suitable planning. Disaster response supply chain is a function of the
geographical location where disaster takes place, nature of disaster, suppliers,
actual need of the community, organizations who are working there, available
information, government policies, local culture, etc. (Dash et al. 2013). It can be
seen easily that the management of disaster relief and the logistics requires different
techniques at different levels. In disaster relief the eventual purpose of the emergency
supply chain is to deliver the right products and services to the right people or
destination at the right time. Cost and information confidentiality are both secondary.
This makes the quick setup and quick response of an emergency SC possible
(Douglas et al. 2005). The establishment of a SC in any disaster is characterized
always by two factors. Firstly, this task is going to be at a short notice with
minimum of resources: man, material, transportation, location, and power/communications
(Table 9.1).
Secondly, the cost implications of the type of SC will play a major role in
affecting all SC strategies irrespective of the availability of the resources. In the
past, firm performance on disaster preparedness was poor, as noted by Helferich
and Cook (2002). No matter the type of disaster, the management of these events
typically follows four sequential stages (CRED 2004): mitigation, preparedness,
response, and recovery. The various stages of the disaster are as shown below in
Table 9.2. SCs link the sources of “supply” (suppliers) to the owners of “demand”
(end customers) (CRED 2004). In a typical humanitarian SC, governments and
NGOs are the primary parties involved. After the primary phase in the secondary
phase, which may be from few days to several weeks, other agencies such as
military, local donors, international agencies, media, industries, and private volunteer
agencies are typically involved.
The military agencies are an entity which in an Indian scenario forms the
backbone of the entire SC network. The affected parties become the customers in
the disaster SC parlance in comparison with a traditional SC. The elements of the
SC’s main responsibility thus become “the fastest and accurate means of ensuring
the supplies reach the affected parties or customers.”
Logistic Necessities in Disaster Management
The Yokohama message emanating from the international decade for natural
disaster reduction in May 1994 underlined the need for an emphatic shift in the
strategy for disaster mitigation (Yokohama 1994). The Yokohama Strategy also
emphasized that disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness are better than
disaster response in achieving the goals and objectives of vulnerability reduction.
Disaster response alone is not sufficient as it yields only temporary results at a very
high cost. Much of the research in the disaster management field is targeted to
public servants, government agencies, and insurance firms charged with responding
in times of crisis and has traditionally focused on crises such as hurricanes,
earthquakes, flooding, and fires (Iakovou and Douligeris 2001; Witt 1997; Warwick
1995; McHugh 1995; Hale and Moberg 2005). Drabek and McEntire conducted a
literature review to evaluate the impact of emergent phenomena in disasters and the
coordination of multiple organizations responding to crises (Drabek and McEntire
2003). Research has found that humans behave in a compassionate manner during
disasters without much panic or antisocial behavior immediately after the crisis
(Fischer 2002). The Columbia-Wharton/Penn Roundtable on “Risk Management
Strategies in an Uncertain World” took place in April 2002 (Hale and Moberg
2005). With the support of the Council of Logistics Management, Helferich and
Cook (2002) and Hale and Moberg (2005) completed perhaps the most comprehensive
review of supply chain security in the aftermath of September 11. One
valuable part of their management report is an annotated bibliography of disaster
planning and emergency response research and articles from the previous 25–30
years (Hale and Moberg 2005).
The vast majority of articles in this comprehensive bibliography come from the
business trade press, research in the disaster planning and management literature,
and guidelines developed by government agencies such as FEMA. Federal EmergencyManagement
Agency (FEMA) is the primary organization for preparedness and response to federal-level disasters in the United States.
The resulting white paper and research report provides managers with a thorough review of current
research, offers a detailed process for development of a disaster management plan
for the supply chain, and includes detailed information on resources, web pages,
and government reports that can be used by managers while implementing
disaster management plans (Hale and Moberg 2005). The above research notwithstanding,
there is still felt a requirement for more research in the areas of the
SC management in terms of warehousing, SC risk mitigation, SC flexibility and
agility, etc., which are only some of the areas which immediately demand
concern.
Existing Literary Resources
Logistics typically refers to activities that occur within the boundaries of a single
organization, and SCs refer to networks of companies that work together and
coordinate their actions to deliver a product to market. In this context a disaster
response SC model can be visualized as given in the Fig. 9.1.
Any disaster management SC has uncertainty as inherent part of the organization.
This uncertainty removal process consists of various compartmentalization of
the processes as shown in Fig. 9.1. However it is pertinent to note that the reasoning
of the disaster response chain to the causes of the disaster is less important than the
response itself while addressing the gargantuan issues as posed by any disaster. This
shall be addressed later in this paper, where structural changes to the present
organizational tree are discussed as a proposed model.
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