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Scientific Editors: Maria Besiou and Susana Pereira
DOI: http:///dx.doi/10.12660/joscmv9n1p55-76
An Empirical Analysis of
Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
Sander de Leeuw
Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Bedrijfskunde – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
sander.de.leeuw@vu.nl
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to empirically verify characteristics of current warehouse
locations of humanitarian organizations (based on public information) and to relate those to the model
developed by Richardson, de Leeuw and Dullaert (2016). This paper is based on desk research. Public
data such as (annual) reports and databases are used to determine the features of the location in em-
pirical terms. We find that a significant proportion of our sample co-locates their products at UNHRD
premises. This suggests that organizations prefer to cluster their warehouse activities, particularly
when there is no fee involved for using the warehouse (as is the case in the UNHRD network). The geo-
graphic map of the current warehouses, together with the quantified location factors, provides an over-
view of the current warehouse locations. We found that the characteristics of the current warehouse
locations are aligned with literature on location selection factors. Current location can be characterized
by infrastructure characteristics (in particular closeness to airport and safety concerns) and by the low
occurrence of disasters. Other factors that were considered by us but were not supported by empirical
evidence were labor quality and availability as well as the political environment. In our study we were
only able to use a limited sample of warehouses. We also focused our research on countries where two
or more organizations have their warehouses located. We did not account for warehouse sizes or the
kinds of products stored in our analysis.
Keywords: Humanitarian supply chain management, facility location, warehouse location, empirical
study, humanitarian logistics.
because they must be kept at the right temperature Asgari, Heidari, Hosseininia, & Goh, 2012). Custom-
(UNICEF, 2012). These issues require humanitarian ers receive service from a facility when the distance
organizations to engage in preparatory activities is equal to, or lower than, a predefined number – the
such as inventory prepositioning in warehouses. so-called coverage distance or radius. In the case of
Ukkusuri and Yushimito (2008) define preposition- disaster relief, it is difficult to set such a requirement.
ing as: ‘the storage of inventory at or near the disas- Disaster relief supply chains have to deal with high
ter location for seamless delivery of critical goods’. levels of demand uncertainty and large-scale de-
Prepositioning will reduce the lead-times for reach- mands at short notice, such as damaged roads, dis-
ing places that are affected by a disaster. Time is traught victims , fragile communication lines, short
an important factor in the provision of relief ; this lead times, and uncertainty about what relief sup-
is especially critical in the first 72 hours (Nahleh et plies are actually needed (Nahleh et al., 2013). Bal-
al., 2013). The survival rate in affected areas is en- cik and Beamon (2008) indicate that the dominating
hanced by the quick availability of critical supplies characteristics that bring complexity into disaster
such as blood and water as well as other resources. relief chains are the unpredictability of the event (in
Critical supplies and relief personnel must therefore terms of timing, location, type and size), the quan-
be transported quickly and efficiently to minimize tity of the needs arising and the short lead times
the cost of the operations and maximize the survival required for many different supplies. Generally in
rate of the affected people (Nahleh et al., 2013). All these circumstances stakes are high, and there is a
these aspects lead to supply chain challenges when lack of appropriate resources (supply, people, tech-
disaster strikes. nology, transportation capacity and money).
ernment and political factors, economic factors and European industry. The VIL Flanders Institute for
community environment (which includes the com- Logistics (2006) and the European Distribution re-
munity’s attitude to business, among other factors ), port of Cushman & Wakefield (2008) identified the
and social and cultural factors (which, for example, following factors: transport system (road, sea, rail,
relates to the general level of acceptance of certain and air, as well as the problem of traffic congestions),
relief supplies ). These factors fit in the framework accessibility of the markets, costs of storage space,
of MacCarthy and Atthirawong (2003), though some land and labor (rent, land and labor costs), supply of
factors are specific to humanitarian supply chains. buildings and land, labor supply and productivity,
know-how of logistics and languages. According to
In addition to the papers by MacCarthy and Atthi- Inbound Logistics (2012) the following factors are
rawong (2003) and Richardson et al. (2016), which important when choosing a location:transportation
summarize the academic research in the area of fac- infrastructure, business culture and IT competen-
tors affecting facility location, we have investigated cy. The Holland International Distribution Council
four industrial reports that discuss location factors. (HIDC, 2012) identified the following factors: in-
We have selected these four industry reports in con- frastructure, the business environment (quality of
sultation with Dutch and Belgian facility location overall/port/railroad infrastructure) and taxes. An
experts; these reports are considered key sources of overview of all the factors and their sources is pro-
information regarding facility location in Western vided in Table 1.
We base our paper on the study by Richardson et al. the infrastructure (logistics quality and competence
(2016) which is the only empirically grounded study of a location – see section 3).
in this domain that has been carried out so far, and
the study by MacCarthy and Atthirawong (2003), 3. METHODOLOGY
which is the key source for the paper by Richard-
son et al. (2016). We aim to empirically verify these This section will describe the methodology that
frameworks by analyzing the current location of will be employed in this paper. Our research can
warehouses using publicly available information. be classified as desk-research based on public sec-
This restricts the factors that we can use since not ondary data. An advantage of using secondary data
all the data may be available. In our research we is that this type of data is easily accessible and can
focused on four factors: infrastructure, labor qual- therefore be obtained relatively quickly (Malhotra
ity and availability, government and political fac- & Birks, 2007). For example, information about hu-
tors and the unique features of the location. We left manitarian organizations can be obtained relatively
out costs since these cannot be estimated based on easily via their websites and/or annual reports. The
public sources. The only aspect related to costs that use of public data will also enhance the validity of
we can measure is the number of organizations that the research findings since similar results may be
make use of the United Nations Humanitarian Re- obtained if this research is replicated (Malhotra &
sponse Depot (UNHRD) network. Space is provided Birks, 2007). Where possible and necessary, we
for free to the participating organizations (cf. Rich- emailed organizations for additional (publicly avail-
ardson et al., 2016). The United Nations World Food able) information.
Programme manages this network and its depots
are located around the world: Brindisi (Italy), Ac- A key constraint on our ability to establish a re-
cra (Ghana), Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Subang search sample was the question of whether public
(Malaysia) and Panama City (Panama). sources could be found about warehouse locations
of humanitarian organizations. Furthermore, the or-
The factors are in line with the most decisive factors ganizations had to have at least a regional or pref-
mentioned by MacCarthy and Atthirawong (2003) erably a global scope. We used Reliefweb (www.
though we could not measure all factors in the list reliefweb.int) and a list of non-governmental orga-
of most decisive factors outlined by Richardson et nizations belonging to Global Corps, to compile a
al. (2016). We could not take speed directly into ac- list of 32 humanitarian organizations. . Not all ma-
count – a factor on the top of the list of Richardson jor organizations could be put on the list due to the
et al. (2016) - since the actual speed of delivery is lack of any publicly available relevant supply chain
not documented. However, as discussed in section information. The list can be found in Appendix 1.
3, the category ‘infrastructure’ contains distance to Reliefweb is part of the United Nations Office for the
an airport or seaport. Quick access to ports contrib- Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. They func-
utes to speed in the supply chain. The other factor in tion as a digital platform to provide reliable disaster
the list of most decisive factors of Richardson et al. and crisis updates to humanitarians. The next step
(2016) - availability and quality of business and sup- was to determine the current warehouse locations
port services – is also a part of what we measure in of these organizations. These warehouse locations
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
60 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
were determined by analyzing the annual reports cally active population), the participation rate (i.e.,
and websites of the humanitarian organizations the proportion of the population aged 15 and older
listed in Appendix 1. After identifying the current that is economically active) and unemployment rate
warehouse locations, these locations were grouped (the share of the labor force that is without work but
per country. In this way, we were able to use coun- available for and seeking employment). The fourth
try-based information such as the Enabling Trade factor is ‘Labor Market Efficiency’, which indicates
Index (by the World Economic Forum) or Logistics how efficient countries allocate their workers with
Performance Index (by the World Bank) to rate the regard to their most effective use and provides the
locations. Below we discuss the operationalization incentives for them to give their best efforts in their
of the location factors. jobs (WEF, 2013).
For the factor ‘infrastructure’ we used the Enabling The ‘political environment’ factor is measured by
Trade Index to rate countries on the quality of in- the Global Peace Index. The Global Peace Index
stitutions, policies, infrastructure and services that ranks countries according to their level of peace.
facilitate the free flow of goods over borders and This ranking is based on 22 qualitative and quanti-
to their destination. The four main categories of tative indicators, and covers three broad areas : the
this index are: market access, border administra- level of safety and security in society, the extent of
tion, infrastructure and the operating environment. domestic or international conflict and the degree of
These four main categories are further divided into militarization (GPI, 2013). In 2013 this ranking con-
subcategories (pillars). The categories used for this sisted of 162 independent countries or States.
research will be infrastructure and availability and The unique features of the location are operational-
quality of infrastructure (pillar 4). This pillar mea- ized by the number of incidents that affect the loca-
sures the quality of the infrastructure of different tion (the number of hazardous incidents as well as
kinds of transportation modes: road, air, rail and sea number of affected people). We use data from The
(WEF, 2014). international Disaster Database EM-DAT, which is a
Information about the Logistics Performance Index part of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology
(LPI) will be retrieved from the country scorecard of of Disasters (CRED). Data from the last ten years
the World Bank. The World Bank is an institute that will be employed for this research. The disasters are
plays a vital role in providing financial and technical divided into two types: natural and technological
assistance to developing countries. In addition, the disasters. As well as the number of affected people,
World Bank provides several reports such as reports the number of disasters will be included , since this
will show the proportion of the number of affected
that contain the LPI. For this research the Logistics
people to the number of disasters . The criteria for
Performance indexes of infrastructure and logistic
inclusion in the EM-DAT database are as follows:
performance will be used.
10 or more people are reported as killed, 100 people
Other information that will be retrieved from the are reported affected, a call for international assis-
World Bank concerns the ‘labor quality and avail- tance has been made and/or a declaration of a state
ability’ of a country. Four factors will be used to of emergency is made. At least one of these criteria
measure this factor: the labor force (i.e., people aged has to be fulfilled for a disaster to enter the database.
15 and over who conform to the definition of the Table 2 provides and presents an overview of how
International Labour Organization of an economi- the selected factors will be measured
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
61 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
Infrastructure
Infrastructure Availability and quality of infrastruc- Enabling Trade Index (ETI)
ture (pillar 4)
Labor force
Labor quality and
Degree of Participation World Bank
availability
Unemployment rate
Political environment Level of peace in the country Global Peace index (GPI)
4. RESULT AND ANALYSIS (FHI), Habitat for Humanity, and Hunger Plus
Inc.). This was because of a lack of complete infor-
Of the 32 humanitarian organizations incorporat- mation on their websites and a failure to respond to
ed in our analysis we had to discard four organi- the emails sent to the humanitarian organizations
zations because they did not (actively) operate a to obtain this information. This left us with 21 re-
warehouse (Partners in Health and the Emergen- maining organizations, of which 11 are members of
cy Nutrition Network (ENN), among others). For the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot
seven other organizations, the warehouse locations (UNHRD) network. Figure 1 shows the geographi-
could not be identified based on public information cal distribution of warehouse locations of 21 differ-
(e.g. Caritas, Food For The Hungry International ent organizations.
The colors of the pins in Figure 1 represent the num- Each continent has at least one warehouse location.
ber of organizations that have a warehouse at that A complete table including the exact number of
location. For example, 16 organizations have a ware- warehouses per organization is presented in Appen-
house at the red pins (Dubai). Figure 1 shows that dix 2. Figure 2 shows the number of organizations
the warehouses are spread all around the world. that have a warehouse location by country.
The humanitarian organizations that we inves- This leaves 11 countries, namely United Arab Emir-
tigated have warehouse locations in 27 different ates (Dubai), Panama, Italy, Ghana, Malaysia, the
countries. The UNHRD network represents five United States, the United Kingdom, Kenya, El Salva-
countries: United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Pana- dor, Indonesia and Vietnam. We analyzed the coun-
ma, Italy, Ghana and Malaysia. The presence of tries using the factors described in Table 2.
a UNHRD facility most likely explains why these
five countries also have the highest number of The first factor is infrastructure. Our assessment of
warehouses in Figure 2. We incorporated in total the infrastructure will be divided into two parts: the
109 warehouses in our study and 69 of these ware- distance to airports and seaports, and an analysis of
house locations (from 11 different organizations) the Enabling Trade Index (ETI) and the Logistic Per-
are part of the UNHRD network. UNHRD offers formance Indicators (LPI). With regard to the first
free warehouse storage space and logistical sup- part, we identified the main airports and seaports of
port to humanitarian organizations that are mem- all the countries in the sample. We then calculated
ber of the UNHRD network (Duran et al., 2007). the distance from the warehouse to the nearest air-
The fact that many organizations locate their relief and seaport. In some cases, the nearest airport was
supplies in the UNHRD network is an indication not the largest or most commonly used airport in the
that they do take costs into account when making country, and thus the distance was estimated s from
location decisions. This is in line with Richard-
the warehouse to the largest airport were measured.
son et al. (2016) and MacCarthy and Atthirawong
Table 3 shows the distances from the warehouses to
(2003), who both argued that costs represent a key
the nearest air- and seaports. A complete overview
factor in the choice of location .
of these distances, transportation times, warehouse
In our analysis we will only focus on the countries addresses and the names of the sea- and airports can
that have locations of two or more organizations. be found in Appendix 3.
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
63 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
Table 3 shows that in almost every country the hu- est possible score and seven is the highest. The areas
manitarian warehouses are less than 50 kilometers that are assessed with the Logistics Performance In-
away from a major airport. This shows that it is an dicator (LPI) are as follows: Infrastructure, and Lo-
important factor for a warehouse to be close to an gistics quality and competence. The LPI uses a scale
airport, because when disaster strikes it can be cru- from one to five, where one is the lowest score and
cial to get the supplies to the victims in the shortest five the highest. Table 4 shows the ranks and scores
possible time. Three warehouse locations are even of the countries in question.. The rank is based on
located at an airport. Seaports, on the other hand, the ETI’s overall ranking of infrastructure out of 138
are often much further away from the main ware- countries (third column in Table 4). When looking at
houses. Only five of the eleven locations are closer all the ETI scores the top five countries are: United
than 50 kilometers to a seaport, which shows that Kingdom, United States, Dubai, Malaysia and Italy.
the distance to a seaport is less important when When looking at the LPI scores of infrastructure in
choosing a warehouse location. One may conclude general and the competence and quality of logistics
from this that when making decisions about access, services (e.g. transport operators, custom brokers),
humanitarian organizations give priority to fast de- we see the same countries in the top five. This shows
livery rather than reducing costs. that these five countries have the best infrastructure
and logistics quality and competence of the ware-
The second part of assessment of infrastructure will house locations in scope. This is not surprising ,
be carried out by means of two indices. The areas because these countries are more economically de-
that will be assessed through the Enabling Trade In- veloped than the remaining six countries and hence
dex (ETI) are the entire infrastructure and the avail- have a better infrastructural system.. A striking fea-
ability and quality of the infrastructure (pillar 4 of ture in this Table is that one of the UNHRD loca-
the ETI). The ETI scores 138 countries through scores tions, Ghana, achieved some of the worst scores of
ranging from one and seven, where one is the low- all the countries.
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
64 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
The second factor that we analyzed was the qual- rate of the country. When looking at the total work-
ity and availability of labor. To measure this factor, force in the countries in scope the United States was
information provided by the World Bank was used. found to have the largest workforce and Panama the
Labor standards can be divided into three parts: the smallest (158.686.472 people in the USA compared
total labor force, the total participation rate and the with 1.777.005 people in Panama). We also observed
unemployment rate. Everyone who is older than 15 that the participation rate varies from 79% in Dubai
and who complies with what is defined by the La- to 49% in Italy. This means that in Italy, more than
bour Organizations as an economically active group half of the total work force is not economically ac-
of people, belongs to the ‘total labor force’. The par- tive. Italy also has the highest unemployment rate
ticipation rate is the proportion of the population and the lowest efficiency rate of the countries in the
aged 15 and older that is economically active. The table, which may negatively influence the decisions
unemployment rate means the percentage of the to- about locating a warehouse in that country . Except
tal labor force that is without work but available for for the smaller size of the work force available Dubai
and seeking employment. The labor market efficien- received high scores. In the remaining rankings they
cy index (which indicates how efficiently countries are in the top four. Vietnam is in the top three on
allocate their workers with regard to their most ef- all rankings, except for labor market efficiency (6th),
fective use and provides incentives for them to make which makes Vietnam a potentially suitable ware-
the best effort they can in their jobs) is reflected by house location. The United Kingdom has the highest
means of a score ranging from one to seven, where labor market efficiency, but its unemployment rate
one is the lowest and seven the highest possible score. is rather high compared to that of the other coun-
Table 5 provides an overview of the corresponding tries. All the other countries are in the middle, and
scores. The ranking is based on the participation thus no conclusions can be drawn about them.
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
65 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
The third factor is the political environment. This house. Moreover, if a country is stable it is safer for
will be measured by means of the Global Peace In- humanitarian organizations to ask help from the lo-
dex, which ranks countries according to their level cal people, which is necessary when a disaster oc-
of peace. Table 6 shows the Global Peace Index of curs . All five UNHRD warehouse locations are in
2013 that lists countries in terms of the highest index countries with a high peace index. However, the dif-
for peace to the lowest. Eight out of the eleven coun- ference between the first ranked and the last ranked
tries in scope are ranked within the first 60 (out of of the 11 countries in scope is considerable: 29th
162) countries with the highest peace index, which (Malaysia) and 136th (Kenya). Although the coun-
is quite a positive observation. If the peace index is tries with the largest number of warehouses are very
high, it will be more unlikely to encounter problems safe it does not seem to be a common practice to lo-
when one needs to distribute supplies from a ware- cate warehouse in only the safest countries.
Panama 14 56 1893
Ghana 13 58 1899
US 9 99 2126
El Salvador 3 112 2240
Kenya 3 136 2466
The last factor that we will analyze is a key feature Kenya (209.651) is much higher than in the United
in each country : the number of affected people and States (84.113). This also indicates that even though
number of hazards. To provide a clearer overview of the United States has the largest number of affected
the affected number of people, a distinction will be people, it does not mean that the United States has
made between natural and technological hazards. an unstable environment. One can see from this Ta-
Only the numbers of the last ten years (2003-2013) ble that the most used location (Dubai) is also the
will be presented. Table 7 provides an overview location that has experienced fewest disasters (four)
of the number of people affected per type of haz- with altogether 32 people affected. This Table shows
ard as well as the total number of people affected. that warehouses are often located far away from di-
The rank order is from the country with the small- saster- prone locations. In addition, four out of five
est number of people affected to the country with UNHRD warehouses (Dubai, Italy, Panama and Ma-
the largest number of affected people. We also list laysia) are in the top five countries where there were
the number of disasters in Table 7 (last column). the least number of people affected, which implies
This shows for example that Kenya has almost as that they are not located in a disaster-prone loca-
many affected people as the United States, but Ke- tion. The complete table, including the distinctions
nya only had 93 disasters , while the United States between (sub) types of hazards, can be found in Ap-
had 248. The average number of affected people in pendix 4 and 5.
Number of
People affected People affected by Total number Number
inhabitants
#WH by Natural Technological of people of
in country
disasters disasters affected hazards
(2014)
Dubai 16 0 32 32 4 9,086,139
Italy 13 91,405 938 92,343 49 60,789,140
Panama 14 112,217 1,153 113,370 25 3,867,535
UK 4 394,721 153 394,874 32 64,559,135
Malaysia 13 496,633 218 496,851 27 29,901,997
El Salvador 3 569,691 114 569,805 24 6,107,706
Ghana 13 704,714 316 705,030 30 26,786,598
Indonesia 3 10,860,609 17,509 10,878,118 229 254,454,778
Vietnam 2 18,281,545 5,253 18,286,798 103 90,728,900
Kenya 3 19,448,077 49,454 19,497,531 93 44,863,583
US 9 20,856,615 3,338 20,859,953 248 318,857,056
Source: EM-DAT the International Disaster Database; http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL (for population figures)
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
67 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
5. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITA- port those of Duran et al. (2007). They stated that the
TIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH UNHRD network provides free warehousing, which
makes the implementation of a pre-positioning net-
The goal of this paper was to empirically verify char- work financially and logistically better feasible. This
acteristics of warehouses locations of humanitarian result is most likely related to the fact that a signifi-
organizations. The characteristics analyzed were de- cant portion of our sample co-locates their products
rived from the studies undertaken by Richardson et at UNHRD premises. This also indicates that orga-
al. (2016) and MacCarthy and Atthirawong (2003). nizations prefer to cluster warehouse activities, par-
We investigated 21 organizations where public in- ticularly when there is no fee involved for using the
formation was available. The locations of the ware- warehouse (such as in the case of the UNHRD net-
houses of these organizations are spread all around work). As a result, the presence of humanitarian or-
the world: each continent has at least one warehouse ganizations in a certain location will have a positive
location and some countries host multiple organiza- influence on other organizations and encourage them
tions with warehouse locations. to locate their facility there as well. By doing this, they
A first observation is that having a good infrastruc- can create opportunities for collaboration and coor-
ture was found to be an important characteristic of dination with the other organizations (Richardson et
the warehouse locations of the humanitarian orga- al., 2010). Collaboration is not just important for com-
nizations we investigated. All the locations in our mercial logistics but also for humanitarian logistics
sample have good access to airports. Since the first (Beamon, 2004; Wassenhove, 2006).
72 hours after a disaster are critical for effective re- We unfortunately cannot draw conclusions with re-
sponse and the affected areas are often difficult to gard to the factors labor quality and availability and
reach, having an infrastructure that facilitates speedy the political environment (as measured by the Glob-
response is of crucial importance.. Most of the loca- al Peace Index) since we could not observe large dif-
tions that were investigated were not very close to a ferences between locations.
seaport. Only 5 out of the 11 locations were within
a distance of 50 km to a seaport. However, the first In summary, , our results show that humanitarian
response generally takes place by means of aircraft, warehouses are often located in areas with good
which means the distance to airports is more impor- quality and availability of infrastructure (all ware-
tant . As argued by Richardson et al. (2016) the abil- house locations were within a distance of 50 km of
ity to provide a quick response to disasters is a key an airport, which suggests that access to other loca-
consideration in facility location. tions is good too), and in relatively safe areas that
are not prone to disasters. We can thereby confirm
We also observed that the humanitarian warehouse that a number of key location factors identified by
locations we investigated are in the top 60 safest Richardson et al. (2016) indeed seem to represent ac-
countries (out of 162) which is evidence that safety tual warehouse locations and therefore most likely
is a serious consideration. However, the organiza- affect location choice.
tions have located their facilities in relatively safe
areas. We also found that in many cases, the facility Our research comes with limitations. Unfortunately,
locations are far away from disaster-prone regions. not all warehouse locations of the major organiza-
A good example of this is the presence of many or- tions could be located due to lack of public informa-
ganizations in Dubai, which is a place that is hard- tion available. Future research should aim to expand
ly ever affected by disasters but which has a very the information provided here and include addi-
good infrastructure,and good access to resources (cf. tional organizations where possible, in order to pro-
Leeuw, Kopczak, & Blansjaar, 2010). vide an as complete overview of factors as possible.
Expansion will also allow for a statistical analysis
Although we cannot draw statistically supported of the data, something that was impossible in this
conclusions, our results show that many (large) or- study given the limited amount of data available
ganizations use UNHRD facilities as a warehouse lo- for comparison purposes. We furthermore did not
cation. This may be driven by the fact that UNHRD include locations with only 1 organization . Finally,
offers the location for free to UNHRD members. We we did not distinguish between large and small or-
therefore expect that costs are an important driver ganizations (e.g. in terms of the facilities required)
for warehouse location decisions, as also identified nor did we differentiate between the foci of the or-
by Richardson et al. (2016). Our findings thus sup- ganization in terms of the product or type of activ-
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
68 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
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16. Life for Relief and Development 32. World Vision International (WVI)
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
70 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
El
WH Malay- Indone- Viet-
Name Organization UNHRD UAE Panama Italy Ghana US UK Kenya Salva-
yes/ no sia sia nam
dor
1 Action Against Hun-
1 1 1 1 1 1
ger (AAH)
2 American Refugee
Committee Interna- 1
tional
3 Care 1 1 1 1 1 1
4 Caritas Internatio-
NA
nalis
5 Catholic Relief Ser-
1 1 1 1 1 1
vices (CRS-USCC)
6 Emergency Nutrition
No WH
Network (ENN)
7 Food For The Hun-
gry International NA
(FHI)
8 Habitat for Humanity NA
9 Humanitarian aid
and civil protection
department of the 1 1 1 1 1 1
European Commis-
sion (ECHO)
10 Hunger Plus, Inc NA
11 Int. Fed. of Red
Cross and Red Cres- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
cent Societies (IFRC)
12 InterAction No WH
13 International Organi-
zation for Migration 1 1 1 1 1 1
(IOM)
14 International Rescue
1 1 1 1 1 1
Committee (IRC)
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
71 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
15 Islamic Relief
16 Life for Relief and
1 1
Development
17 Lutheran World Fed-
1 1
eration (LWF)
18 Medecins Sans Fron-
1 1
tiers (MSF)
19 Mennonite Central
NA
Committee (MCC)
20 Mercy Corps 1 1 1 1 1 1 2
21 Norwegian Refugee
1
Council (NRC)
22 Overseas Develop-
No WH
ment Institute (ODI)
23 Oxfam 2 1
24 Partners in Health No WH
25 Refugees Interna-
NA
tional
26 Save The Children 3 2
27 The Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster As- NA
sistance (OFDA)
28 United Nations Chil-
dren’s Fund (UNI- 1 1 1 1 1 1
CEF)
29 United Nations High
Commissioner for 1 1 1 1 1 1
Refugees (UNHCR)
30 United Nations Of-
fice for the Coordina-
1 1 1 1 1 1
tion of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA)
31 US Committee for
1 1 1 1 1 1
Refugees (USCR)
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
72 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
*Although ECHO is not directly involved in humanitarian relief activities like the other organizations it has been included here since it funds stockpil-
ing through the UNHRD network which it has actively supported
Cam- Nether- Bel- Zam- Philip- Den- Bo- Dom. Ger- Aus-
Name Organization Libiya France Spain Nepal China Iraq
bodia lands gium bia pines mark livia Rep. many tralia
1 AAH
2 American Refugee
Committee Interna-
tional
3 Care 1
4 Caritas Int.
5 CRS-USCC
6 ENN
7 FHI
8 Habitat for Humanity
9 ECHO
10 Hunger Plus, Inc.
11 IFRC 1
12 Inter-Action
13 IOM
14 IRC
15 Islamic Relief
16 Life for Relief and
1
Development
17 LWF 1 1
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
73 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
18 MSF 1 1 1
19 MCC
20 Mercy Corps 1
21 NRC
22 ODI
23 Oxfam 1
24 Partners in Health
25 Refugees Int.
26 Save The Children 1 1
27 OFDA
28 UNICEF 1 1
29 UNHCR
30 OCHA
31 USCR
32 WVI 1 1
TOTAL: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Appendix 3: Distances and transportation times from the warehouse to (the main) airport and seaport
Name container
Country Name city Address WH Name airport Distance Time Distance Time
port
UAE Dubai Dubai Industrial City Al Maktoum Airport 21,6 km 0h27 Jebel Ali port 23,3 km 0h27
Panama Panama city BLDG 200, Av. Omar Tocumen International 29 km 0h26 Balbao 1,4 km 0h04
Torrijos Airport
Italy Brindisi Aeroporto Militare Leonardo Da Vinci International 581 km 5h20 Gioa Tauro 402 km 4h17
“Pierozzi, (Fiumicino)
72011 Casale
Brindisi – Salento 1 km 0h02
Airport
Ghana Accra Kotoka International Kotoka International 1 km 0h02 Tema 30 km 0h29
Airport Airport
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
74 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
Malaysia Subang Jalan TUDM, Seksyen Kuala Lumpur 52 km 0h41 Klang 30km 0h29
U7 International Airport
40150 Shah Alam, Se-
langor
Sultan Abdul Aziz Airport 1 km 0h02
(Subang)
US Denver 11000 East 40th Avenue, Denver International 26 km 0h21 Houston 1670 km 15h50
Airport
Michigan 17300 W 10 Mile Rd. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne 42 km 0h29 New York/ New 998 km 9h19
Southfield, MI 48075 County Airport Jersey
(office)
UK Oxford/ London Heathrow 87 km 0h56 Port of London 106 km 1h24
Bicester/ Arkwright Road, Bicester
(near London)
London Luton 76 km 1h02
Milton Keynes Oxfam Southern Logis- London Heathrow 79 km 1h03 Port of London 93 km 1h20
tics
Centre, Milton Point,
Garamonde Drive, Wym-
bush
London Luton 44 km 0h33
Salford/ Bury Old Road , M7 London Heathrow 338 km 3h17 Liverpool 61 km 0h51
Blackburn 4ZH
(near Manchester) Salford
Manchester Airport 20 km 0h26
Kenya Nairobi IFRC Offices Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta International 19 km 0h25 Inland Container 336 km 4h44
Woodlands Road, Airport Depot
Kisumu
El Salvador San Salvador IFRC Offices, 17 Calle El Salvador International 42 km 0h33 Porto de la 184 km 2h33
Poniente y Avenida Airport Union
Henyi (former puerto
Dunant Cutuco)
Indonesia Jakarta Jl. Pejaten Barat no. 8 Soekano- Hatta International 40 km 0h45 Tanjung Priok 30 km 0h40
Pasar Airport
Minggu, Jakarta Selatan,
Jakarta 12550
Leeuw, S., Mok, W. Y.: An Empirical Analysis of Humanitarian Warehouse Locations
75 ISSN: 1984-3046 • Journal of Operations and Supply Chain Management Volume 9 Number 1 p 55 – 76
Vietnam Hanoi Trung Tu Diplomatic Noi Bai International 31 km 0h47 Haiphong 109 km 2h04
Compound, Airport
6 Dang Van Ngu, Dong
Da
District
Techno-
Natural
SUM logical SUM TOTAL
disasters
disasters
Drought Earth- Epi- Extr. Flood Mass Storm Vol- Wild- Industrial Miscel- Trans-
quake demic Temp. move- cano fire laneous port
ment
Dubai 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 4 4
Panama 1 0 0 0 18 0 0 0 1 20 0 2 3 5 25
Italy 1 3 0 6 10 2 3 0 2 27 0 1 21 22 49
Ghana 0 0 6 0 9 0 0 0 0 15 5 2 8 15 30
Malaysia 0 1 1 0 18 1 1 0 1 23 0 0 4 4 27
US 0 0 0 9 50 0 130 0 24 213 8 7 20 35 248
UK 0 1 0 5 13 0 9 0 0 28 0 1 3 4 32
Kenya 5 1 12 0 30 3 0 0 0 51 3 14 25 42 93
El Salvador 1 2 1 1 6 0 7 2 0 20 0 2 2 4 24
Indonesia 0 36 6 0 68 21 4 15 2 152 8 11 58 77 229
Vietnam 1 0 4 0 39 2 33 0 0 79 6 1 17 24 103