Mitigating Transportation Risks at Humanitarian Supply Chains

Insights from 2015 Nepal earthquake

Tina Comes Professor, CIEM, Department of ICT, UiA tina.comes@uia.no

Matthieu Lauras Associate Professors, Mines d`Albi, University of Toulouse matthieu.lauras@mines-albi.fr

Hossein Baharmand PhD Research Fellow, CIEM, Department of ICT, University of Agder hossein.baharmand@uia.no

Outline

▪ The 2015 Nepal earthquake ▪ Humanitarian Supply chains and Risks ▪ State-of-the-art ▪ Research Methodology ▪ Findings from Nepal response ▪ Keypoints ▪ Conclusion

1. The 2015 Nepal earthquake

8,790 casualties that is more than 50% of total deaths related to disasters in Asia and the Pacific in 2015*

7,000,000,000 $ Total value of disaster effects (damages and losses)**

22,300 injuries that mostly were located in very remote areas**

* Source: UN (ESCAP 2015) **Source: Government of Nepal (PDNA 2015)

Total affected people: 5,639,722* *Source: Government of Nepal

2. Humanitarian Supply Chains (HSCs) Characteristics

• Uncertainties such as unknown supply/demand and available resources; • Low volunteer skills, high rotation of personnel, poor/damaged local infrastructure; • Incomplete transportation networks, security problems, limited reliable information.

HSC & Risks Risk is the outcome of uncertain events that prevent the supply chain from achieving its performance aims (Heckmann et al., 2015).

Infrastracture Risks

▪ Information Technology ▪ Financial Systems ▪ Transportation

Any disruption in this category can lead to serious problems in HSC (Comes and Van de Walle, 2014)

Risk Mitigation: a sustained action to reduce or eliminate the risk to people and property from hazards and their effects (Tang and Musa, 2011).

Applying best practices from commercial supply chain management to the humanitarian context (Husdal, 2010): ▪ Transfer or delegate some (or all) logistics services, e.g. transportation, to

logistics service providers (LSP) .

“ Do what you do best and outsource the rest! Peter Drucker

3. State-of-the-art LSPs in the contexts of HSC

Author(s) Methodology Major Finding(s) Limitations

Cozzolino et al. (2012)

Propose a framework and apply it to a case study

LSPs can be a part of agile strategy for relief organizations

* Empirical research is needed to enrich the results

Merminod et al. (2014)

Review the HSC literature + reports and online documents

LSPs are a key link in resource coordination

* Empirical approach is needed to better identify relationships

Vega and Roussat (2015)

Review the HSC literature + Analyze the websites of some leading LSPs

Academic literature neglect the roles of LSPs in humanitarian logistics;

* Practitioners` viewpoints/articles are not included; * Propositions are not validated empirically

Nepal Field Research June 2015

Nepal

Supporting Team: Prof. Peter Groenewegen, VU; Dr. Julie Ferguson, VU; Prof. Bartel Van der Walle, TU; Prof. Tina Comes, UiA;

Dr. Kees Boersma (VU)

Femke Mulder (VU);

Jeroen Wolbers (VU);

Kenny Meesters (TU);

Hossein Baharmand

Data Collection ▪ 38 semi-structured

interviews with distinct representatives from 10 humanitarian organizations;

▪ 2 field trips to severely affected areas (Nuwakot and Rasuwa) and shadowing field workers;

▪ Reviewing online resources, local newspapers, and clusters` minutes.

4. Research Methodology

Data Analysis ▪ Converting recordings to

transcrpits and developing coding scheme based on transcripts and field notes;

▪ Coding in Nvivo and extracting results for the defined themes.

In the Field with Practitioners

When nothing goes right, turn left and everything matters

“

5. Findings form interviews Transportation Risks

“The complexity of situation improved a lot after the second major earthquake” UN representative, Kathmandu

Risks Main Driver(s) Risks Main Driver(s)

Delivery delays

Inappropriate weather; traffic density; road blockage Loss of cargo Accidents; lanslides

Insufficient capacity

Lack of available transportation facilities; shortage of

experienced drivers/pilots Cargo decay

/damage Inappropriate type/mode of

transportation

Market fluctuations

high demand and insufficient supplies in market

Deceptive information

ICT inf. breakdown; lack of inf. sources; trucks with low tech.

Are you interested to know what were the effects of neglecting those risks?

Let`s see some field evidences

What Happened? 3 relief helicopters crashed untill the time of our field research (geographic; information; pilots).

Nearly 33 trucks had accidents everyday in the time of our field research (infrastructure; technology; information; drivers).

Damaged/decayed cargo (transportation mode)

How do you evaluate the situation in this video?

Findings form interviews What was the situation?

The government of Nepal obliged international relief organizations to identify and outsource the distribution of relief items to an implementing local NGO. ? And? ▪ the difficulty of procuring and managing a fleet during the immediate

response and shortly after that; ▪ some LSPs were more willing to cooperate with well-known HROs, for

instance, UN organizations

How did LSPs help interviewed practitioners

Having worked in tourist industry

before the event of earthquake, they - had connections in all over the country:

information

- had access to several experienced drivers:

cargo safety, ontime delivery

- Could provide variety of trucks:

appropriate capacity, cargo safety

- were familiar with roads and driving

culture: routing and ontime delivery

- knew police stations to receive updated

information about roads;

- had official insurance certificate and price

table;

Some Observed Key Points in the Field until Early Recovery

25 April 12 May 21 June Field Research

Much efforts and energy were devoted to repond to

disruptions (the outcome of risks)

instead of investing on mitigation

Lack of knowledge or

experience regarding risk

mitigation strategies in the

field

Delivery delays, huge backlog,

insufficient space in warehouses, several unmet

demands after 6 weeks

Keypoints for Practitioners

▪ Transportation risks threaten the performance of response from several perspectives.

▪ LSPs are helpful in mitigating transportation risks in humanitarian supply chains.

▪ LSPs can improve the performance of HSC within their services and capabilities: situational awareness, crisis mapping, need assessment

Opportunities for Academics

Integrating LSPs when developing decision support systems for

HSCs: tracking and monitoring systems; crisis mapping

Developing analytical models for selecting LSPs in the contexts of

humanitarian disasters (what are the criteria and how to evaluate)

Conclusions

▪ We emprirically studied the role of LSPs in the context of humanitarian supply chain with a field research at Nepal response.

▪ We collected data through interviews, online sources, and field observations and analyzed them qualitatively.

▪ According to the findings, LSPs can bring significant assistance in mitigating identified transportation risks in humanitarian supply chains. And, improve the overall response performance.

Thanks! Any questions? hossein.baharmand@uia.no ciem.uia.no @hbaharmand You can also easily find me at: