IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popmgt/v32y2023i8p2491-2509.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Supply chain preparedness: How operational settings, product and disaster characteristics affect humanitarian responses

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas Stumpf
  • Maria Besiou
  • Tina Wakolbinger

Abstract

Supply chains are dynamic and complex systems. This holds particularly true for humanitarian supply chains that operate under strong uncertainty. In view of an ever‐growing gap of unmet humanitarian needs, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the behavior of humanitarian supply chain systems. Despite a growing academic output in this field, there is a lack of empirical studies that take an integrated view on humanitarian supply chains and support decision makers with fact‐based evidence. Based on four extensive case studies and existing literature, we developed a system dynamics model that reflects the operational reality of humanitarian organizations in form of their centralized, hybrid and decentralized settings. The model provides a holistic supply chain view and measures the operational performance with regard to response cost, delivery lead time and impact on the local economy. Furthermore, we studied the impact of preparedness investments to enhance operational performance in the supply chain and deliver more humanitarian assistance with the limited resources available. Finally, we used our model to analyze the impact of major shocks such as the COVID‐19 pandemic to assess the vulnerability of humanitarian supply chains. The results indicate that operational settings, product and disaster characteristics have a major influence on the supply chain performance both in the noninvestment case as well as in the case where preparedness investments have been made. Specifically, for low‐value items, we find that decentralized settings have the lowest supply chain costs while for high‐value items the price difference between local and international procurement determines which setting is the most cost‐effective one. The preferability of the supply chain setting strongly depends on the indicator chosen. Hence, ultimately, the findings emphasize the need to apply appropriate indicators and identify their trade‐offs to comprehensively analyze the performance of humanitarian supply chain settings. The newly introduced Humanitarian Return‐on‐Investment concept can play an important role in this context.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas Stumpf & Maria Besiou & Tina Wakolbinger, 2023. "Supply chain preparedness: How operational settings, product and disaster characteristics affect humanitarian responses," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(8), pages 2491-2509, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:8:p:2491-2509
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.13988
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13988
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/poms.13988?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:8:p:2491-2509. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1937-5956 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.