Supply Chain Frontiers issue #16. Read all articles in this issue.
When Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast region, U.S. disaster relief operations were put to the test. With neighborhoods under water, roads washed out and lives on the line, humanitarian agencies were confronted with the logistical challenges of a major relief operation without the infrastructure or resources to support them. How could they provide food, shelter and medical care to the thousands left homeless, and in some cases trapped in their homes, by the hurricane?
Once considered an afterthought in the humanitarian sector, logistics is now recognized by many disaster response organizations as the key to successful relief operations. To help meet the growing need for logistics professionals in this sector, the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) is getting involved in an inter-university program that trains students for careers in humanitarian response.
Started in the fall of 2001, the Humanitarian Studies Initiative (HSI) is a collaborative program offered by MIT, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition and Fletcher School. Through coursework, seminars, and a three-month field placement, the program provides an average of 20 students per year with a combination of theory, skills, and practice necessary to work in the humanitarian field.
While HSI accepts students from all the collaborating schools, at MIT it was mostly marketed to those studying political science or urban studies and planning. Thanks to CTL’s involvement it is now expanding to include students in logistics and supply chain as well.
“It’s one of the first programs to offer graduate-level training in logistical response to humanitarian crises,” said CTL’s Jarrod Goentzel, the executive director of the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program. “It recognizes logistics and supply chain as an important discipline within the humanitarian sector.”
Because of this new relationship between the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and the Humanitarian Studies Initiative, students in CTL’s Master of Engineering in Logistics program can participate in HSI and have their core MIT curriculum count towards their HSI requirements. Also, for the first time, HSI students from other institutions can take logistics and supply chain courses offered by MIT CTL as part of their curriculum.
“Logistics is a vital part of the humanitarian process, and a field which our students must have exposure to before heading out into the field,” said HSI Director Tara Gingerich. “One purpose of the inter-university initiative is to capitalize on the strengths of each of the participating schools. Logistics and supply chain is clearly a strength of MIT, and more specifically CTL. We’re excited to have the Center on board.”
Humanitarian agencies are also excited about the inclusion of supply chain and logistics in the inter-university initiative. “It brings together capable students from world-renowned institutions and provides them with sectorial knowledge of the specific challenges and constraints involved in humanitarian logistics,” said Martin Bush, a senior officer in the Logistics Department of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Bush emphasized that by exposing supply chain students to humanitarian studies or vice versa, it would prepare them for the unique logistical challenges they will face in the field. As an example, he referenced the IFRC mission in Pakistan following a massive earthquake in 2005 that left more than 3 million people homeless. With no passable roads into the region, they developed a supply chain that utilized helicopters and animals to get emergency relief goods to the earthquake victims.
“We have to deliver goods to hard-to-reach locations, made even more difficult to access by natural disasters. The more effective our supply chain is, the faster we can respond and the more victims we can serve,” said Bush.
For this reason, humanitarian organizations such as the IFRC have been dedicating an increasing amount of time and resources to improving their logistics and supply chain management operations. Bush said in the past five years, they have made major improvements in the IFRC supply chain. “We have standardized processes, increased supply chain visibility, and started to pre-position stock for basic emergency relief items.”
But they still have a long way to go. Because the focus on logistics is relatively new in the humanitarian sector, Bush pointed out that there are unlimited opportunities for those with supply chain expertise to innovate change. And he’s hoping that the collaboration between HSI and CTL will create professionals with the combination of education, experience and practical skills to get the job done.
For more information contact the Humanitarian Studies Initiative or the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics.