HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT:

LITERATURE REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH

by

Watcharavee Chandraprakaikul
Department of Logistics Engineering, School of Engineering
University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce,
Bangkok, Thailand
Email: watvee@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Humanitarian supply chain management has attracted research attention in the recent years. In this paper, an
attempt is made to review the status of leading published literature in humanitarian logistics and supply chain
management. A literature classification scheme is suggested. The reviewed journals are classified according to research
publication, publication year, topics and research methodology. Based on this, some possible research issues are also
identified, viz., distribution planning, information and communication system, sourcing and supplier management, supply
chain coordination and integration, performance measurement, and transportation choices. This paper contributes to
establishing a future research agenda for humanitarian supply chain management.

KEYWORDS
Humanitarian Supply Chain, Relief Logistics, Literature Review

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the area of humanitarian aid supply chain management has become very popular. This is
evidenced by number of research papers in journals and conferences. While interest in humanitarian aid supply chain
management (SCM) is increasing, there is no systematic review paper which collects the existing issues and analyse
current literature for the future research area in the realm of humanitarian aid supply chain management. In order to
develop better understanding in this research area, a systematic review of relevant literature is needed. Therefore, the
purpose of this paper is to provide an up-to-date review of research in this area. The approach taken to the research has
been to first identify and bring a wide body of literature from the humanitarian supply chain area. This has been carried
out by a thorough search of databases using keywords associated with humanitarian supply chain and relief logistics.
Then a systematic process was used to classify the literature along salient conceptual and research methodological
dimensions. The results from this review were then used to generate an analysis that could be used to guide future
humanitarian aid SCM research.

This paper is structured as follows: In Section 2, the definition and characteristics of humanitarian supply chain
are given. In Section 3, the literature review method is presented and Section 4 presents an analysis of the current
research topics. In Section 5, a research agenda for future work is outlined and conclusions are drawn.

HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

This section provides the terminologies used in this research by examining the definition of humanitarian supply
chain management and the characteristics of humanitarian supply chain which differs from business supply chain.

Definition

Humanitarian SCM and humanitarian logistics are used interchangeably in this study as well as in the literature
(Ertem et al., 2010). The review starts with an illustration of humanitarian supply chain, definition of humanitarian
supply chain management and humanitarian logistics.
 In general businesses, supply chain links the sources of supply (suppliers) to the owners of demand (end
customers). The ultimate goal of any supply chain is to deliver the right supplies in the right quantities to the right
locations at the right time. Supply chains comprise all activities and processes associated with the flow and
transformation of goods from the raw material stage through the end user (Beamon and Balcik, 2008). Similar to
commercial supply chain, supplies flow through the relief chain from the donation to the consumers. There is no single
form of humanitarian supply chain, although a typical supply chain could follow the sequence in Figure 1. Government
and NGOs are the primary parties involved (Ergun et al., 2009). Governments hold the main power with the control they
have over political and economical conditions and directly affect to supply chain processes with their decisions. Donors,
public and private organisations are the other significant players in the humanitarian supply chains. Donors have become
particularly influential in prompting humanitarian organisation to think in terms of greater donor accountability and
transparency of the whole supply chain (Wassenhove, 2006). Two-way arrow in the figure represents two-way
communications in information, product and fund flows among the parties in the humanitarian chain.

According to McLachlin et al. (2009), humanitarian supply chains tend to be unstable, prone to political and
military influence, and inefficient due to lack of joint planning and inter-organisational collaboration. They deal with
inadequate logistics infrastructure, along with shifting origins of and/or destinations for relief supplies without warning.
Further, donors often request their funds be spent on direct materials and food, and even at a particular disaster location,
rather than on crucial but indirect services such as information systems, staff training, and/or disaster preparedness
(Oloruntoba and Gray, 2006; Wassenhove, 2006; Kovacs and Spen, 2007). Therefore, humanitarian supply chain
management does not only deal with delivering goods, materials or information to the point of consumption for the
purpose of alleviating the suffering of vulnerable people, but also need to manage value to donors and other stakeholders.

FIGURE 1
A TYPICAL HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY CHAIN

The Fritz Institute defines humanitarian logistics as the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the
efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of goods, and materials, as well as related information, from point of origin to
the point of consumption for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of vulnerable people (http://www.fritzinstitute.org).
The function encompasses a range of activities, including preparedness, planning, procurement, transport, warehousing,
tracking and tracing, and custom clearance (Thomas and Kopczak, 2005). Considering at the meaning of humanitarian
logistics, it focus mainly on alleviating the affected people while the definition of humanitarian supply chain is broader
and cope with more activities to response to the stakeholders in the supply chain.

Characteristics

Even though the structure of humanitarian chains is similar to most business supply chains, the humanitarian
supply chain is often unstable (Oloruntoba and Gray, 2006). As a result, coordination and management of disaster supply
chains are increasingly needed and must be put in place in the humanitarian supply chains. Goals, revenue sources, and
performance metrics of humanitarian and regular supply chains differ notably. Unlike the humanitarian supply chains,
which do not have any profit targets and rely heavily on volunteers and donors, in regular supply chains, stakeholders are
the “owners” of the chain. The source of revenue for humanitarian supply chain is government funding, charitable
donations from individuals and corporation, and in-kind donations. The goal of humanitarian supply chain is to be able to
respond to multiple interventions, as quickly as possible and within a short time frame (Wassenhove, 2006). In addition,
performance measurement in the nonprofit sector include the intangibility of the services offered, immeasurability of the
missions, unknowable outcomes, and the variety, interests and standards of stakeholders (Beamon and Balcik, 2008).
More comparison is given in Table 1.
 TABLE 1
COMPARISON OF BUSINESS AND HUMANITARIAN SCM

Topic Business SCM Humanitarian SCM

Main objective Maximise profit Save lives and help beneficiaries
Demand pattern Fairly stable Irregular
Supply pattern Mostly predictable Unsolicited donations and in-kind donation
Flow type Commercial products Resources like vehicles, shelters, food, drugs
Lead time Mostly predetermined Approximately zero lead time
Inventory control Safety stocks Challenging inventory control
Delivery network structure Location of warehouses, DCs As hoc distribution facilities
Technology Highly developed technology Less technology is used.
Performance measurement Based on standard supply chain Time to respond the disaster, meeting donor
methods metric expectation, percentage of demand supplied
Source: Ertem et al. (2010)

LITERATURE REVIEW METHOD

In this section, the main characteristics and aspects of academic research in the area of humanitarian SCM are
assessed. In particular, this analysis attempts to address the following issues:
 What are the characteristics of the research in the field of humanitarian supply chain in terms of methodology?
 What are the main topics in the humanitarian supply chain research?

Journal articles were sourced from the management and science journal databases (Emerald and Science Direct
and Business Source Premier). These databases were used in order to search literature in a variety of journals publishing
in this area. Keywords to search relevant papers were “humanitarian supply chain”, “humanitarian logistics”, “relief
chain”, “relief logistics” and “humanitarian aid”. The review focused on refereed journal papers published within the
period 1990-2010. The papers were primarily retrieved from logistics, supply chain management, operations
management journals, although publications were also found (through database searches) in disaster prevention journals.
A total of 33 papers were identified. The sources of these are illustrated in Table 2 and show a distribution across
management, operations, and technology journals. As shown, 72 percent of the reviewed papers have been published in
just four journals; International Journal of Logistics, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics
Management, International Journal of Production Economics and Management Research News. The journal, which has
published the most articles, is the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management (24%).

TABLE 2
DISTRIBUTION OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Journal name Number of papers Percentage

International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications 4 12%
International Journal of Logistics Management 1 3%
International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 8 24%
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 2 6%
International Journal of Production Economics 5 15%
International Journal of Public Sector Management 1 3%
International Journal Supply Chain Management 2 6%
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management 1 3%
Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems 1 3%
Journal of the Operational Research Society 1 3%
Management Research News 7 21%
 FIGURE 2
NUMBER OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS BY YEAR

Figure 2 presents the distribution of academic publications by year. The results show that research in
humanitarian aids in perspective of logistics and supply chain management is relatively new, only starting from 2005.
Kovacs and Tatham (2009) state that humanitarian logistics has received much media as well as research attention since
the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. A key reason for this interest stems from the extent of logistics costs in a
humanitarian organisation. After that period, it has received much interest in year 2009 in several publication journals.

All papers have been classified in terms of their research methodology and focus. For this research, Wacker’s
(1998) classification scheme was used. Wacker suggests that research methods can be broadly divided into two groups:
analytical and empirical. Analytical methods are further categrorised as conceptual, mathematical, and empirical methods
include experimental design, statistical sampling or case studies. Results of classifying the articles according to research
methods adopted are shown in Table 3. Table 4 shows the top key terms observed in the reviewed articles along with
some sample articles.

TABLE 3
CLASSIFICATION BY METHODOLOGY

Research methodology Appearance frequency Percentage

Analytical
Conceptual/theoretical 16 48%
Mathematical modelling 7 21%
Empirical
Case study/field study/interview 9 27%
Experimental design 1 3%
Survey 0 0%

TABLE 4
TOP KEY TERMS

Key term Number Sample

Coordination 3 Tatham and Kovacs (2010), Balcik et al. (2010)
Challenges in humanitarian logistics 4 Kovacs and Spens (2009), Chandes and Pache (2010)
Customer service 1 Oloruntoba and Gray (2009)
Distribution 1 Balcik (2008)
Facility location 1 Balcik and Beamon (2008)
Humanitarian relief logistics model 9 Pettit and Beresford (2005), Tovia (2007) Maon et al. (2009)
Inventory management 5 Beamon and Kotleba (2006), Taskin and Lodree (2009)
Performance management 5 Schulz and Heigh (2009), Beamon and Balcik (2008)
Promoting humanitarian logistics 2 Whiting and Ostrom (2009), Kumar et al. (2008)
Purchasing 2 Trestrail el al. (2009)
 The popular research methodology is conceptual (Table 3) with many authors presenting basic and fundamental
concepts relevant to humanitarian supply chain and logistics management. Case studies are also common though they do
tend to focus on single case. On the contrary, survey and experimental design have received less interest. As for topic,
there is little research dealing directly with distribution, location, customer service and other supply and logistics
management related topics. There are several authors giving interest to present humanitarian logistics model, inventory
management and performance management from the existing research.

ANALYSIS

A total of 33 papers were collected and analysed according to the top key terms in Table 4. The current literature
focuses on four topics as follows.

Humanitarian Relief Logistics Model

This topic is popular among the researchers in this area. Several authors build on the idea of business logistics to
improve the performance of disaster logistics. Wassenhove (2006) states strategy to win of humanitarian relief and
business for cross learning possibilities. He proposes a model for creating effective disaster management which consists
of five key elements in disaster preparedness which are human resources, knowledge management, operations and
process management, financial resources and the community to produce effective results. In the same year, Oloruntoba
and Gray (2006) investigates the nature of the humanitarian aid supply chain and discuss the extent to which certain
business supply chain concepts, particularly supply chain agility. They propose an agile supply chain model for
humanitarian aid as many humanitarian supply chains have a short and unstable existence with an inadequate link
between emergency aid and longer-term development aid. Later, Kovacs and Spens (2007) create a framework
distinguishing between actors, phases, and logistical processes of disaster relief. They drew parallels of humanitarian
logistics and business logistics to discover and describe the unique characteristic of humanitarian logistics while
recognising the need of humanitarian logistics to learn from business logistics. Perry (2007) presents a conceptual
framework of natural disaster response requirements to natural disaster planning. This model shows that natural disaster
response activity needs to be viewed holistically in the context of a disaster management planning continuum that ideally
starts well before the response action is required and of which locally-led inclusiveness is a crucial component.

Jahre and Jensen (2009) develop a framework for the study of humanitarian logistics. They discuss three
dimensions identified in logistics and organisation theories and how they relate to three different cases of humanitarian
logistics operation. Richey (2009) develops a framework for disaster recovery. His work suggest that much of the work
in supply chain disaster and crisis preparedness and recovery can be theoretically supported in combination of four
mature theoretical perspectives: the RBV of the firm, communication theory, competing values theory and relationship
management theory.

Inventory Management

Irregularity in terms of size, timings, and locations is a characteristic feature of demand patterns for relief items.
This irregularity presents unique challenges to relief fulfillment system. As the number, magnitude, and complexity of
global emergencies continue to increase, inventory management methods must adapt to meet these challenges. There are
researchers working in these challenges for humanitarian supply chain. Beamon and Kotleba (2006) develop and test
three different inventory management strategies as applied to the complex emergency in south Sudan. This research
indentifies critical system factors that contributes most significantly to inventory system performance, and identifies
strengths and weaknesses of each inventory management strategy. Whybark (2007) concerns with the inventories that are
held for disaster relief and the need for research into their management. He describes characteristics of disaster relief
inventories from acquisition through storage and distribution and points out some of the developments in related fields
that affect the management of these inventories. Tysseland (2009) determines how a small country’s military force and a
small country’s non-government organisation plan for and set up equipment maintenance, spare parts inventories in
connection with man-made humanitarian disasters. Tysseland studies to determine how the physical context,
organisational structure and governance affect the planning and set-up. From his study, he concludes that the
organisational structure and governance of the organisation contributing to the humanitarian operation are more
important than physical context of the operation itself. When it comes to inventory control issues, the maturity level is
different for the two cases in question.
Performance Management

The objective of the relief chain is different from commercial supply chain. The goal of the relief chain is to
provide humanitarian assistance in the forms of food, water, medicine, shelter, and supplies to areas affected by large-
scale emergencies. As a result, performance measurement is critical to non-governmental organisations accountability.
Effective performance measurement systems would assist relief chain practitioners in their decisions, help improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of relief operations, and demonstrate the performance of the relief chain. Currently, there are
researchers working on performance management to propose performance measurement system in the relief sector.

Beamon and Balcik (2008) develop performance measurement for the humanitarian relief chain by comparing
performance measurement in the humanitarian relief chain with performance measurement in the commercial supply
chain. They also present a framework that can be used as a basis for a performance measurement in the relief sector. The
performance measurements which they propose include resource performance metrics (inventory holding costs, cost of
supplies, distribution costs), output performance metrics (response time, number of items supplied and supply
availability), and flexibility performance metrics (ability to respond to different magnitudes of disasters, time to respond
to disasters, ability to provide different types of items.

Schulz and Heigh (2009) present and test the “Development Indicator Tool” – a tool developed by the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to guide and monitor the continuous
performance of their logistics units on a daily basis. They conclude that the process of designing and implementing tools
for a performance a performance measurement and management system can and should be kept simple. Important for the
success of the process is the integration of key stakeholders throughout the entire process as well as the simplicity and
userfriendliness. Pettit and Beresford (2009) give a conceptual discussion of critical success factors as applied to the
humanitarian aid supply chain. They propose ten critical success factors as follows: strategic planning, resource
management, transport planning, capacity planning, information management, technology utilisation, human resource
management, continuous improvement, supplier relations and supply chain strategy.

Challenges in Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management

As the research in humanitarian supply chain is still infant, many researchers have paid attention on the
characteristics and challenges in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management. Kovacs and Spens (2009) identify
the challenges of humanitarian logisticians with respect to different types of disasters, phases of disaster relief and the
type of humanitarian organisation. Their work is based on a country as a case. In their conclusion, challenges of
humanitarian logisticians depend not only on the disaster at hand, but also on the local presence of their organisation. The
most emphasised challenge is the coordination of logistical activities. Challenges can be managed better if attributing
them to different stakeholder environments. Carroll and Neu (2009) examine the humanitarian logistics and supply chain
operations literature, propose an alternative theoretical grounding arising from that examination, and stimulate further
debate and analysis around themes introduced in the strategic evaluation of military, non-military and composite
emergency relief logistics, the comparison of humanitarian and commercial supply chains, and the coordination of
humanitarian operations.

FUTURE AREAS FOR RESEARCH

Generally the research in humanitarian aid is published in disaster prevention or disaster management journal.
Only in these years starting from 2005, humanitarian and logistics aids have been the topics of interest for researchers in
logistics and supply chain paradigm. As evident from the literature, the academic literature in this field is relatively new
and still scant. There is only a limited body of research on the topic. This indicates a need for more academic research in
the field. Herein, a few issues within humanitarian SCM are identified which may require further research exploration.

Distribution Planning

In humanitarian supply chain the flow of goods from donators to affected people often passes through several
stages or echelons. In such a humanitarian supply chain each stage may comprise many facilities. The purpose of a
humanitarian relief chain is to rapidly provide the appropriate emergency supplies to people affected by natural and man-
made disasters so as to minimise human suffering and death. The design or redesign of distribution networks entails
taking decisions on a range of issues, including the location and flexibility of distribution centres, the capacities required
to fulfil the affected people needs, and the control system to manage all activities. The distribution system used in
humanitarian relief operations may depend on each situation’s characteristics. The distribution of emergency supplies for
a typical disaster relief operation involves international actors, governmental bodies, donators or non-governmental
offices. The interactions among these elements are complex and still limited. These could be explored more in for future
research.

Information and Communication System

Supply chain disaster and crisis situations demand effective communication. Intranet and extranets, electronic
data interchange, video conferencing, global positioning system, and even private radio all provide assistance while
likely creating a network of immense confusion. IT has long been recognised as being important for the support of
humanitarian efforts. Long and Wood (2005) suggest that management of information during a crisis “is the single
greatest determinant of success.” IT assists in integrating activity and providing information to allow the supply chain to
operate more effectively. Specific decision support systems and communications and information systems are vital in
controlling relief operations (Pettit and Beresford, 2009). Such systems can assist in crisis, disaster and emergency
planning, response and management. However, research of information system and communication system for relief
chain is still limited. The challenge is to explore more on this area for humanitarian aid in order to drive the effectiveness
of the response for disaster management.

Sourcing and Supplier Management

Allocating the available resources at the right time and in the right quantity is an inherent part of the
humanitarian supply chain management. Procurement activity in humanitarian supply chain is very important because of
the cash donations and the fact that on hand inventories are usually not sufficient at the onset of a disaster. As a result, the
opportunities in this research area include determining the number of suppliers to deal with, managing changing buyer-
supplier relationship, sourcing strategies, and outsourcing decisions for humanitarian supply chains.

Supply Chain Coordination and Integration

Coordination describes the relationships and interactions among different actors operating within the relief
environment. Humanitarian relief environments engage international relief organisations, host governments, the military,
local and regional relief organisations, and private sector companies, each of which may have different interests,
mandates, capacity and logistics expertise. Typically, no single actor has sufficient resources to respond effectively to a
major disaster (Balcik et al., 2009). Many factors contribute to coordination difficulties in disaster relief, such as the large
number and variety of actors involved in disaster relief, and the lack of sufficient resource. The current literature
addresses the complexities and challenges associated with coordinating humanitarian assistance. There are also non-
academic resources, such as practitioner reports, handbooks, training documents, and agency website that describe
current practices and emerging initiatives in relief chain coordination. However, the literature lacks studies that broadly
and systematically address relief chain coordination. This could be the future area for research.

Performance Measurement

There is a clear requirement for more research on the capabilities of humanitarian supply chains and the
measurement of their effectiveness, although some exploratory research has been taken. Measurement system enables the
organisation to ensure it is tracking along an appropriate path as it moves from its current state to a future state. Thus,
sophisticated measures of effectiveness for humanitarian logistics performance do not yet exist. The most recent research
considering this issue derived the requirements for performance measurement from a critical literature review and then
tested them within a humanitarian aid organisation. Therefore sophisticated performance measurement could be an issue
for future research.

Transportation, Model Choice, Routing

The provision of transport is very different in disaster situation compared to the circumstances generally faced
by commercial chains. While the latter will have stable fleets of vehicles and primarily good infrastructure over which to
operate, in disaster situation there is usually destroyed infrastructure and the fleet will have to be organised at the disaster
location from available resource (Kovacs and Spens, 2007). Transport is critical in disaster relief and an important aspect
of humanitarian logistics is the requirement to address mode, utilisation of capacity, scheduling, and maintenance in such
circumstances (Pettit and Beresford, 2009). The full range of activities includes consolidation, contract services,
payment, local tendering, outsourcing of transport, strategic alliances, and cost minimisation. Even though, the
importance of transportation is eminent, research in this area for humanitarian supply chain is very limited. This topic
would be a research issue of interest.
 CONCLUSION

In this paper, an attempt has been made to review the literature on humanitarian SCM. In presenting this work
the author has first described the definition and characteristics of humanitarian supply chain management. Next, the
classification scheme was set out to identify the trends in existing literature and then further analysis was carried out to
establish areas for future research.

In this research, a literature classification scheme has been presented according to the distribution of journal
publications, publication years, research methodology and key terms. It seems that further research is needed to develop
knowledge in distribution planning, information and communication system, sourcing and supplier management, supply
chain coordination and integration, performance measurement, and transportation choices. There is other literature
available in the realm of humanitarian supply chain management via journals, reports, magazines, and conference papers
that has not been included here. However, the main papers on humanitarian supply chain management have been
covered.

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