Collaboration in humanitarian operations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

This chapter provides an overview of collaboration in humanitarian operations, focusing on the logistical aspects. Humanitarian logistics and operations has emerged as a subfield of supply chain and operations management and studies how humanitarian organizations can be more efficient in the delivery of humanitarian aid. We review the key characteristics of this subfield compared to traditional logistics and supply chain management. Collaboration is particularly important in the humanitarian context, in which only the collective performance of humanitarian organizations should count. We therefore discuss key factors of collaboration using the humanitarian SCOR model. Finally, we analyze how far the COVID-19 pandemic has forced humanitarian organizations to collaborate differently in their operations and what can be learned from it for the future of humanitarian operations. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Building Resilient Supply Chains with Information Systems: Key Lessons from Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique During the COVID-19 Crisis

This research aims to analyze the resilience of humanitarian supply chains, with a focus on the role of information systems, through a case study of Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique during the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical research methodology is based on a qualitative study, which includes semi-structured interviews with key actors and operators from the Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. The paper highlights the crucial and inherent role of information systems on each of the four dimensions of humanitarian supply chain resilience: reorganization capacity, collaboration, flexibility, and humanitarian culture. Drawing on recent theoretical works on supply chain resilience as well as empirical results, the paper underscores the importance of information systems and proposes a conceptual model of the relationship between humanitarian supply chain resilience and the role of information systems. The value of this research is linked to its empirical and qualitative study of a Non-Governmental Organization logistics operation during an international crisis, which contributes not only to the literature on resilience, but also provides guidance for managers to target their actions responsively and proactively to enhance resilience over time.. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Impact of Mexican Public Policies in the Development of COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the entire world's health, social and economic systems. More than a year after the declaration of the pandemic, the current situation of the different countries is defined by the actions taken towards containing the spread of the virus and reducing the number of deaths.Mexico has had one of the highestCOVID-19 death tolls in theworld and the policies implemented by the government have been questioned by some international agencies. This chapter seeks to statistically analyze the effect of the policies proposed by theMexican federal government in the number of weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths. The results show that the effects vary from state to state, this depends on the real enforcement of the policies. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Dimensions and sub-dimensions of emergency supply chain resilience: a case study of Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This paper aims to study the dimensions and subdimensions of humanitarian supply chain resilience through the case of an non-governmental organization (NGO) logistics organization facing the international COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology of this empirical research paper is based on a qualitative study using semistructured interviews with key actors of the Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique (MSF Log), NGO during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. Findings: The data analysis highlighted four main dimensions of humanitarian supply chain resilience: organizational capacity, collaboration, flexibility and humanitarian culture. The transversal importance of the information system and that of the humanitarian culture were also pointed out. Furthermore, the authors have identified the subdimensions of each dimension;these subdimensions further elaborate the main dimension and provide a more detailed understanding of the concept. These dimensions require both proactive and reactive actions to be effective. Finally, based on these empirical results, a conceptual model of humanitarian supply chain resilience is proposed. Research limitations/implications: Additionally, further research can be done to explore the impact of digital technologies on the humanitarian supply chain resilience and how these technologies can be used to improve the resilience of humanitarian supply chains. Additionally, future research can also be conducted to explore how to measure the resilience of humanitarian supply chains and how to develop methods to improve the resilience of these supply chains. Practical implications: The dimensions and subdimensions of resilience that have been highlighted may provide a guide for managers to target their actions, both responsively and proactively, to act on resilience over time when facing a crisis such as an international pandemic. Originality/value: The value of this research is linked to the findings that result not only from literature about resilience but are also founded on an empirical and qualitative study of an NGO logistics organization facing an international crisis. The research provides an in-depth understanding of the practical application of supply chain resilience in a humanitarian context and the specific challenges and opportunities that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic for MSF Log. It also highlights the importance of information systems and humanitarian culture in maintaining the supply chain resilience. The findings of this research can be used as a guide for other humanitarian organizations to improve their supply chain resilience in times of crisis. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Optimisation of COVID-19 vaccination process using GIS, machine learning, and the multi-layered transportation model

COVID-19 has affected the lives and well-being of billions of citizens worldwide. While nondrug interventions have been partially effective in containing the COVID-19 epidemic, vaccination has become the most important factor in maintaining public health and reducing deaths. In this study, a model is proposed to overcome the difficulties in organising vaccination due to heterogeneous population distribution in cities and to optimise the vaccination process considering the available resources. The results of the model are of strategic importance for the control of the COVID-19. Considering the transportation structures, population and vaccine resources in the regions, a different number of clusters is formed for each city. Each cluster consists of several districts that share health resources. A hybrid approach consisting of mathematical modelling and k-means algorithm is proposed, and it reduced the difference between vaccination times of three different vaccination clusters to about 3.5 days. The results also showed that the vaccination process can be reduced from 108 days to 44 days, which meant a 40% improvement in speed for administering vaccines. In this case study, we presented a vaccination programme in which the average antibody rate of individuals does not fall below the critical-time threshold. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Supply chain gaps analysis during COVID-19 pandemic - the case of medical supplies in Tanzania

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the supply chain gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania amid the pandemic era. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a mixed approach, using both structured questionnaires and individual interviews to gather raw data (quantitative and qualitative data). To assess quantitative data for statistical (descriptive and inferential) analysis, this study used a sample of 57 wholesale and retail pharmacies and 10 hospital pharmacies, which were randomly selected. The thematic analysis was applied to the gathered qualitative data to authenticate the quantitative findings and conclusions which were the outcome of the descriptive and inferential analysis (binary logistics regression) analysed by the SPSS. Findings: The results revealed the presence of various supply chain gaps in terms of target gaps, time gaps and coverage gaps. This study highlighted the disruption on demand and uncertainty in business environment as ways that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the gaps and revealed the negative effects of the supply chain gaps on the effectiveness of medical supplies in Tanzania. Research limitations/implications: The results revealed the presence of various supply chain gaps (in terms of target gaps, time gaps and coverage gaps), underlined the disruption in demand and uncertainty in the business environment as ways that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the gaps and revealed the negative effects of the supply chain gaps on the effectiveness of medical supplies in Tanzania. Practical implications: Data generated and used in this study is from participants from one country only (Tanzania), despite the supply chain gaps being common to many developing countries in general. Originality/value: This study provides a novel framework in medical supply chain literature by identifying numerous disruptions in the medical supply chain which emerged during the COVID-19 emergence and serves as a basis for future studies on how to counter the gaps and rebuild a resilient and sustainable medical supply chain in developing countries. © 2023, Alfred Ain Sallwa.

Innovation in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management: a systematic review.

The COVID-19 global health crisis forced border closings, strained resources and tightened funding, forcing humanitarian organisations to innovate. This paper aims to identify gaps in the literature on innovation in humanitarian supply chains, and to develop an appropriate framework for future research through a systematic literature review. We use a systematic literature review approach and synthesis the discussion of innovation in humanitarian supply chains after reviewing 43 papers. The synthesis identifies the different contexts for and outcomes of innovation in humanitarian supply chains. Our findings indicate that research on innovation in humanitarian supply chains is an underdeveloped topic. Gaps we identified in regards to the humanitarian context are: (1) a limited discussion of the contribution by the beneficiary to the supply chain; (2) a limited discussion of reconstruction innovations; (3) a lack of study on field application for complex innovations; (4) the lack of discussion of the role of individual knowledge in humanitarian supply chain innovation and finally (5) a lack of study of position innovations where humanitarian organisations use supply chains as a way to market effectively towards donors.

Simultaneous response to multiple disasters: Integrated planning for pandemics and large-scale earthquakes.

Since the beginning of COVID-19, individuals who have SARS-CoV-2 infectious have brought a heavy burden on the healthcare system. Unavoidably, along with pandemics, large-scale disasters, which are possibly emerging, may double the current health crisis. For a powerful disaster response plan, the health services should be prepared for the overwhelming number of disaster victims and infected individuals The proposed framework determines the appropriate number and location of temporary healthcare facilities for large-scale disasters while considering the burden of ongoing pandemic diseases. In this study, first, a multi-period, mix-integer mathematical model is developed to find the location and number of disaster emergency units and disaster medical facilities. Second, we develop an epidemic compartmental model to stimulate the negative effects of the disaster on disease spread and a mixed-integer mathematical model to find optimal number and the location of pandemic hospitals and isolation centers. To validate the mathematical models, a case study is conducted for a district of Istanbul, Turkey.

How Does Digital Transformation in Logistics Challenge Poverty Alleviation During Global Crisis?

Poverty has never been a serious crime thought 90% of the human population at the bottom of the pyramid hardly enjoys the fruits of the economy. The paper is a serious study on the foundations of poverty, traps and the roots of serious disasters which frequently take away the single most rice from the mouth of the poor, leaving 60% of the earth with infantile deaths and widespread epidemics. Recent COVID pandemic has further necessitated the urgency of this study conducted in various villages of India as well as Russia gathering live reports through interviews conducted with humanitarian agencies, fieldworkers as well as HSCM firms dealing with various forms of crisis. The question is very huge. Why few people choose to be in poverty trap? What is the trap? What happens when a crisis hits the trap? How firms can better manage disruption in logistics decision making working in clusters? Serious evidences were collected in difficult times with firms during COVID to gather real-time data related to crisis management, logistics importance in deciphering poverty-stricken population The research work further brings in importance of humanitarian work to create smiles in billions of undernourishment children globally fostered with cooperation among donors and logistics operations with future implications in block chain technology, agility and lean network management. The strength of this paper is on white paper field reports from rural regions like Sunderban area in West Bengal India, having humanitarian crisis and subsequent relief measures. © 2022 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Designing humanitarian logistics network for managing epidemic outbreaks in disasters using Internet-of-Things. A case study: An earthquake in Salas-e-Babajani city.

Along with the destructive effects of catastrophes throughout the world, the COVID-19 outbreak has intensified the severity of disasters. Although the global aid organizations and philanthropists aim to alleviate the adverse impacts, many employed actions are not impactful in dealing with the epidemic outbreak in disasters. However, there is a gap in controlling the epidemic outbreak in the aftermath of disasters. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel humanitarian location-allocation-inventory model by focusing on preventing COVID-19 outbreaks with IoT-based technology in the response phase of disasters. In this study, IoT-based systems enable aid and health-related organizations to monitor people remotely, suspect detection, surveillance, disinfection, and transportation of relief items. The presented model consists of two stages; the first is defining infected cases, transferring patients to temporary hospitals promptly, and accommodating people in evacuation centers. Next, distribution centers are located in the second stage, and relief items are transferred to temporary hospitals and evacuation centers equally regarding shortage minimization. The model is solved by the LP-metric method and applied in a real case study in Salas-e-Babajani city, Kermanshah province. Then, sensitivity analysis on significant model parameters pertaining to the virus, relief items, and capacity has been conducted. Using an IoT-based system in affected areas and evacuation centers reduces the number of infected cases and relief item's shortages. Finally, several managerial insights are obtained from sensitivity analyses provided for healthcare managers.

Rebuilding disrupted supply chains: How can a self-organised social group facilitate supply chain resilience?

Purpose This paper seeks to explore how a self-organised social group (SOSG) can facilitate supply chain resilience (SCRES) during an emergency condition. Design/methodology/approach A netnographic research was conducted on SONJO, an online SOSG emerging in response to problems in personal protective equipment (PPE) and food small businesses' supply chains (SCs) during the state of COVID-19 emergency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Qualitative data of 237,010 words were extracted from the group chats among 223 SONJO WhatsApp Group (WAG) members and were analysed using template analysis. Findings This paper reveals five communicative acts through which the SOSG facilitates SCRES, namely supply chain (SC) knowledge sharing, networking, bridging, mapping, and mindfulness. The enactment of these communicative acts could foster SC collaboration and help rebuild and sustain the SC operations during the critical period of the pandemic. The SOSG also facilitates the SC actors to be heedful of their responsive actions and risky operations. Practical implications This paper emphasises the need for organisations to build and maintain relationships with social communities and to extend their social capital beyond their existing SC linkages as an alternative way to survive unexpected disruptions. Originality/value This paper offers a novel perspective to understand SCRES from an external force. It proposes that, in the face of a devastating disruption, SCRES is not a self-induced process and that the SOSG could play a pivotal role in rebuilding the disrupted SCs. It also shows how a humanitarian effort could help rebuild commercial SCs.

The Allocation Method for Personal Protective Equipment in the Emerging Infectious Disease Environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic gives humankind a lesson that the outbreak of an emerging infectious disease (EID) is sudden and uncertain. Accurately mastering its dynamics and putting forward an efficient and fair humanitarian logistics plan for personal protective equipment (PPE) remains difficult. This study examines the decision making for humanitarian logistics to answer the question that how to coordinate fairness and efficiency when facing supply-demand imbalance during humanitarian logistics planning in an EID environment. The main contributions include two aspects: (1) The victims' losses in terms of fairness and efficiency in receiving PPE are jointly explored by evaluating their bearing capacity evolution, and then a novel loss function is built to search for a reasonable compromise between fairness and efficiency. (2) A multi-objective optimization model is built, which is solved using the combined use of goal programming approach and improved branch and bound method. Finally, the practicability of the proposed model is tested by an EID case study. The potential advantages of the proposed model and improved approach are discussed.

A Model for Understanding the Mediating Association of Transparency between Emerging Technologies and Humanitarian Logistics Sustainability

There has been considerable worldwide attention to the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology (BCT), and artificial intelligence (AI) in all sectors of the economy. Despite still being in the expansion phase, the application of the IoT, BCT, and AI to humanitarian logistics (HL) has drawn a lot of interest due to their significant success in other industries. Commercial and noncommercial organizations are both under growing universal pressure for transparency. Therefore, this study offers a model for understanding the mediating association of transparency between emerging technologies and HL sustainability. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was used in conjunction with SmartPLS3. The software was applied to information acquired via questionnaires from 434 disaster relief workers (DRWs) chosen using the snowball sampling approach. The findings suggest that in disaster relief operations (DROs), where corruption and mismanagement in HL have been key concerns for all stakeholders, emerging technologies could be a way forward to achieving system transparency and HL sustainability. The ultimate beneficiaries of transparent and sustainable HL will be all of society, especially the victims of catastrophes. Such victims can receive proper aid on time if the appropriate technology is used in DROs, and early warnings can save many lives. This study adds to the body of knowledge by providing the first empirical evidence assessing the role of emerging technologies in HL transparency and sustainability.

Challenges of Humanitarian Logistics on disaster management: The experience of Corona Pandemic in Tanzania

Despite the government of Tanzania's multiple measures to combat the coronavirus epidemic, there is still a lot of misery and human death that is recorded from time to time. The goal of this research was to determine the role of coordination, transportation, and information and communication technology in the performance of humanitarian operations during the coronavirus pandemic and to give recommendations for how to improve it. The data was collected via a questionnaire from a sample of six referral hospitals in Dar es Salaam and the Coastal Region using quantitative methodologies and an explanatory research methodology. Using descriptive data analysis, the mean and standard deviation of the findings were computed, and the data were then summarized using frequency distribution tables before being analyzed using a multiple regression model. All independent factors demonstrated a significant positive relationship with humanitarian relief performance, including coordination, transportation, and information communication technology (p0.05). For better humanitarian relief operation performance, the study recommended that referral hospitals management ensure that there are adequate facilities for distribution of relief requirements, the required materials/ facilities arrive on time and adequate ICT facilities for coordination of all stakeholders in the relief operation.

Including decision-makers preferences in the cost-deprivation trade-off during disaster interventions

Purpose>In this contribution, the purpose of this study is to extend the established social cost concept of humanitarian logistics into a preference-based bi-objective approach. The novel concept offers an efficient, robust and transparent way to consider the decision-maker’s preference. In principle, the proposed method applies to any multi-objective decision and is especially suitable for decisions with conflicting objectives and asymmetric impact.Design/methodology/approach>The authors bypass the shortcomings of the traditional approach by introducing a normalized weighted sum approach. Within this approach, logistics and deprivation costs are normalized with the help of Nadir and Utopia points. The weighting factor represents the preference of a decision-maker toward emphasizing the reduction of one cost component. The authors apply the approach to a case study for hypothetical water contamination in the city of Berlin, in which authorities select distribution center (DiC) locations to supply water to beneficiaries.Findings>The results of the case study highlight that the decisions generated by the approach are more consistent with the decision-makers preferences while enabling higher efficiency gains. Furthermore, it is possible to identify robust solutions, i.e. DiCs opened in each scenario. These locations can be the focal point of interest during disaster preparedness. Moreover, the introduced approach increases the transparency of the decision by highlighting the cost-deprivation trade-off, together with the Pareto-front.Practical implications>For practical users, such as disaster control and civil protection authorities, this approach provides a transparent focus on the trade-off of their decision objectives. The case study highlights that it proves to be a powerful concept for multi-objective decisions in the domain of humanitarian logistics and for collaborative decision-making.Originality/value>To the best of the knowledge, the present study is the first to include preferences in the cost-deprivation trade-off. Moreover, it highlights the promising option to use a weighted-sum approach to understand the decisions affected by this trade-off better and thereby, increase the transparency and quality of decision-making in disasters.

Maturity model for evaluating disaster and humanitarian operations

Purpose: This paper proposes a maturity model (MM) for assessing disaster operations and identifying strategies for organisations to evolve their maturity stages. Design/methodology/approach: This study applies a systematic literature review to identify state-of-the-art work related to maturity models for disaster operations. In addition, the study develops a case study to validate the proposed maturity model in a generic scenario and two real-life scenarios. Findings: The analysis of 158 papers in the literature resulted in identifying 8 maturity models for disaster operations. Based on their structure, the authors proposed a new model with five maturity stages suitable for any of the four phases of the disaster life cycle (i.e. mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery). In addition, the research identified and presents 24 strategies for improving disaster operations according to each maturity stage transition. Finally, the research presents a case study that evaluates the disaster response operations from a Civil Defense organisation considering a response scenario disaster in general, a flood scenario, and the COVID-19 pandemic scenario. Originality/value: This study provides the following three main contributions useful for academics and practitioners in the disaster operations area: a new maturity model for assessing disaster operations, a strategy guide for improving disaster operations based on a maturity evolution and an empirical study exploring the approximation between academia and professionals involved in real-life disaster operations management. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Relief Supply Chain Management Using Internet of Things to Address COVID-19 Outbreak.

Nowadays, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the most significant factor to be considered all over the world is to manage this pandemic and especially to address positive cases, efficiently and effectively. This can be achieved by simultaneously utilizing the present network with supply chain settings and also the Internet of Things (IoT). This consideration enables the accurate monitoring of suspected cases in real-time to optimize total service time. Hence, this paper firstly designs two sub-models to minimize distance and traffic while minimizing total response time. Our main contribution in this paper is to develop a dynamic scheme using IoT to deal with suspected cases. We also investigate the proposed methodology on a real case problem in Canada. A comprehensive analysis of the proposed methodology behavior has been conducted and the results showed the managerial decision-making process to address COVID-19 patients. The proposed approach establishes efficient strategies to identify suspicious COVID-19 cases and provide them with medical observance in a short time when utilized with IoT. The obtained results of the considered scenarios show 12% up to 15% improvement in the ambulance response time when using IoT.

Strategies for ensuring required service level for COVID-19 herd immunity in Indian vaccine supply chain.

Post COVID-19 vaccine development, nations are now getting ready to face another challenge: how to effectively distribute vaccines amongst the masses to quickly achieve herd immunity against the infection. According to some experts, herd immunity for COVID-19 can be achieved by inoculating 67% of the population. India may find it difficult to achieve this service level target, owing to several infrastructural deficiencies in its vaccine supply chain. Effect of these deficiencies is to cause frequent lead time disruptions. In this context, we develop a novel modelling approach to identify few nodes, which require additional inventory allocations (strategic inventory reserves) to ensure minimum service level (67%) under the possibility of lead time disruptions. Later, through an illustrative case study on distribution of Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, we identify conditions under which strategic inventory reserve policy cannot be practically implemented to meet service level targets. Nodes fulfilling these conditions are termed as critical nodes and must be overhauled structurally to make the implementation of strategic inventory policy practically viable again. Structural overhauling may entail installation of better cold storage facilities, purchasing more quality transport vans, improving reliability of transport network, and skills of cold storage manager by training. Ideally, conditions for identifying critical nodes for COVID-19 vaccine distribution must be derived separately by substituting COVID-19 specific parametric values in our model. In the absence of the required data for COVID-19 scenario, JE specific criteria can be used heuristically to identify critical nodes and structurally overhaul them later for efficiently achieving service level targets.

The human side of humanitarian supply chains: a research agenda and systematization framework.

Humanitarian operations are increasingly receiving attention due to the numerous recent disasters and crises caused by both natural and man-made events, from mass human exodus to pandemics such as COVID-19. The successful management of humanitarian supply chains requires the effective use of human resource practices, which in turn requires strong leadership in the so-called 'soft side' of management. This study aims to investigate the current status of research on the human aspects of humanitarian supply chains. Through a systematic and comprehensive literature review, encompassing an original codification and in-depth analysis of journal articles, this work provides a research agenda and a number of lessons concerning human resource management (HRM) in humanitarian operations. The main findings reveal that: (i) HRM impacts the ability of humanitarian organizations to adequately prevent, prepare for and respond to disasters; (ii) training programs for aid personnel are a vital aspect of humanitarian responsiveness; (iii) humanitarian operations require a workforce with a variety of soft and hard skills; (iv) lack of trained staff is one of the main challenges in this field; and (v) building relationships and strengthening networks can enlarge the human resource pool available. Therefore, the findings of this study and its proposed research agenda have implications for both theory and practice. In terms of theory, this work provides seven recommendations, representing opportunities for scholars to advance this body of knowledge. For humanitarian practitioners, this paper offers insightful lessons to guide them in the management of human resources in humanitarian operations.