Supply Chain Frontiers issue #8. Read all articles in this issue.
A MLOG Student Teams Up with an International Humanitarian Institute
The devastation caused by December's tsunami prompted an unprecedented outpouring of global aid that presented disaster relief providers with innumerable logistical challenges. MLOG student Tim Russell has teamed up with international humanitarian organization the Fritz Institute to draw logistical lessons from the relief effort and create a supply chain framework to deal with future disasters.
The Fritz Institute carried out a survey of almost 40 organizations that were providing on-site relief to tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and East Africa. More than 100 people from 18 international aid organizations replied. Russell is analyzing the data and the results should help the organization to further its mission, which is to improve the efficiency of disaster relief efforts through logistics practices and technology solutions.
The initial results of the work were presented at the Humanitarian Logistics Conference, Geneva, April 22-24, 2005, to an audience of top international aid organizations and leading logisticians.
"The biggest lesson to be learned from the tsunami relief effort is that one centralized group needs to coordinate the logistics of the entire effort," said Russell. After the tsunami hit, hundreds of aid organizations, thousands of volunteers, tons of supplies and billions of dollars flooded the region. Every organization agreed that the financial resources needed to conduct the relief effort were available, but the lack of clear ground information kept the aid from reaching many of the people in need.
Russell pointed to the region of Banda Aceh at the tip of Sumatra as a perfect example. "Banda Aceh had been destroyed, just wiped off the map," he said. "Because of a rebel war in the region, no aid organizations had a presence there before the tsunami. When the tsunami hit, Banda Aceh was destroyed, but no group had any knowledge of the area or understanding of what the victims there may need."
The United Nations did set up a joint logistics center to help disseminate ground information and reduce duplications in the supply chain, but unfortunately not all groups used the logistics hub. "It's the best way to share information. At the hub, they'll know what roads are open, what the latest customs processes are, if bridges have been fixed, and what the airport manifest looks like," Russell explained. "This information-sharing makes everyone's efforts more effective."
This type of information would have proved valuable to many of the organizations, which cited in their surveys the destruction of infrastructures, such as roads and airfields, and confusing customs practices as problems in the transportation of goods and services. In fact, the survey showed that the destruction of most coastal roads in Indonesia and Sri Lanka forced 75% of respondents to use air transportation exclusively to access the area. In addition, more than 70% of the respondents encountered delays due to the inconsistent and constantly changing customs procedures.
Another lesson learned from the Fritz survey is that aid organizations did not have enough people with appropriate training to perform specific tasks, especially trained logisticians. People staffing the agencies' headquarters had greater expertise, but they were not enough to mitigate the lack of people in the local area.
"There are not enough trained logisticians in the field," said Russell. "This means there's no metrics being done, no way to track how fast goods are getting to their destination, and no means to evaluate the supply chain in real time." This problem is exacerbated by the lack of software being used to track the supply chain. According to the surveys, most organizations just use Excel spreadsheets or homegrown systems. "The cost of time and money to buy the software and train their people is too much for many groups to handle."
These problems are not new to the humanitarian community. "Whenever the international community responds to war, civil conflict and natural disasters with aid, complex logistical problems present themselves," said Russell. "Many people involved in humanitarian relief recognize these problems, but this is the first time anyone has ever done studies on how to solve them."
Russell has firsthand experience of such challenges. Prior to joining the MLOG program he spent five years with the Peace Corps, where he witnessed the need for better supply chain practices within humanitarian relief efforts. A lack of coordination was evident when he was helping refugees victimized by the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999. "I was collaborating with the many international aid organizations involved in that effort," he said. "Organizations duplicated the work of other organizations and even unknowingly bid against each other for goods and services driving prices unnecessarily higher."
Russell hopes the institute survey and his research will not only help humanitarian organizations solve these types of logistical problems, but also will open the world's eyes to the need for more study in humanitarian logistics. "This research might introduce the academic world to this problem," he said. "And who knows, it may inspire more people to do more studies and make humanitarian relief even more effective."