Table 4.
Learnings from COVID-19 for managing humanitarian supply chains
| Factors | References | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Preparedness | Whitten et al. (2012), Jahre (2017), Tomasini and Wassenhove (2009), Kovacs and Sigala (2021), Mobula et al. (2020) | It leads to the ability to face any emergent situation. It is concerned with all the logistics and humanitarian preparation for the probable disasters |
| Prepositioning of relief items | Toyasaki et al. (2017), Bai et al. (2018), Torabi et al. (2018), Sharifi-Sedeh et al. (2020) | Prepositioning is a strategy to maintain the inventory of the relief items at different locations, either alone or jointly, to prepare for disasters, including pandemics |
| Joint procurement | Herlin and Pazirandeh (2015), Schulz and Blecken (2010) | Joint purchasing of items leads to low purchase prices, improved product quality, and long-term relationship with suppliers that reduces the risk of supply shortage |
| Multiple sourcing | Cozzolino et al. (2012), Yang et al. (2019), Haque and Islam (2018), Kovacs and Sigala (2021) | Multiple sourcing is concerned with the procurement of more than one source to ensure the on-time supply of the relief items |
| Needs assessment | Blecken (2010), Kovacs and Sigala (2021) | Need assessment is very important for planning the actions to be taken to fulfill the needs of the beneficiaries |
| Collaboration | Balcik et al. (2010), Tomasini and Van Wassenhove (2009), Van Wassenhove (2006) | Cross-sector collaboration and public–private sector partnerships become very important for supply chain resilience in disaster-affected areas. Many companies observed new business opportunities related to the production of medical items during the pandemics |
| Coordination | Vega (2018), Begum and Momen (2019), Saleh and Karia (2020), Balcik et al. (2010) | Proper coordination among the actors of humanitarian logistics plays a vital role in relief operations. It leads to effective utilization of the resources and minimizes the cost of the other items to be procured |
| Swift trust and commitment | Meyerson et al. (1996), Xu et al. (2007), Hocutt (1998), Miettila and Moller (1990) | Swift trust is a presumptive form of trust, and it was introduced to explain the paradoxical trusting behavior shown by members of new temporary formed teams. Commitment is intended to continue a course of action or activity. Trust is the precondition for enhancing commitment |
| Risk management | Baharmand et al. (2017), Kumar and Singh (2021a), Iakovou et al. (2014) | Many risks have been observed in Humanitarian supply chains, such as import disruption, transport restriction, supply and distribution uncertainties, price volatility, capital shortage, lack of food securities, etc |
| Information sharing | Kumar and Singh (2021b), Ergun et al. (2014), Gunasekaran and Ngai (2003) | Information sharing is an urgent need of humanitarian supply chains. The information-sharing develops trust among the humanitarian organizations and actors |
| Response time | Abidi et al. (2013), Jabbour et al. (2019), Tatham and Kovacs (2007) | Response time is concerned with the minimum time required to send the relief to the sufferers. During COVID-19, response time for the patient needed ventilator support and oxygen supply were very crucial |
| Supply chain visibility | Choi and Sethi (2010), Klueber and O’Keefe (2013), Dubey et al. (2020) | Visibility is vital when the actor needs access to information regarding materials/relief items across the supply chain |