Overview:

• When disaster strikes where it is most likely to occur, the logistics response can be as efficient and effective as in any pre planned strategy.

Challenge:

A multi stakeholder donor agency, partnered with Challenge Advisory. We began a focused collaboration with the agency by providing technical expertise to improve their supply chain process. The scope of the project targets their core business the “food supply chain”, which aims to strengthen operational efficiency and performance. Our aim was to reduce the cost of delivery by a minimum of 15% per year.

The Revelation:

Since 2000, the agency had delivered aid to an annual average of 385 disasters. Much of the agencies emphasis had been delivering aid to rapid onset disasters, the timing of which, is harder to foresee but the locations tend to be centred around the same geographical locations, a fair estimate is the agency deliver 80% of rapid disaster relief to the same locations over a three-year period.

The agency accepts that 50-70% of the cost of responding to any particular disaster is the logistical cost, so we are therefore talking about a very large logistics and supply chain business. The fundamentals of good and continuously improving supply chain management are as important in humanitarian logistics as they are in commercial logistics, and the latest techniques and technologies should be integral to helping those delivering aid.

Outcomes:

We advised a clear focus on building national capacity in disaster-prone regions, so that when disaster strikes where it is most likely to occur, the logistics response can be as efficient and effective as in any pre planned strategy. The agency is now driving towards a reliable, agile and scalable supply chain that has the ability to react efficiently, with respectable sustainable operation.