The UNICEF Supply Chain
Last week, I visited UNICEF’s Supply and Logistics headquarters in Copenhagen, together with my International Logistics Management students from Copenhagen Business School. I was very impressed by interesting presentations about UNICEF’s supply chain and the processes of their almost fully automated warehouse. Keep on doing your important work that is essential to fulfill children’s rights to health, education and protection.
Introducing the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (Guest Post by the Co-Editors)
In today’s guest post, Nezih Altay and Ira Haavisto, the new Co-Editors of the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM) provide an introduction to their journal.
We are very excited and motivated about the task given to us and humbled by the trust of our friends and colleagues. JHLSCM promotes the exchange of knowledge, experience and new ideas between researchers and practitioners and encourages a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional approach to the resolution of problems and exploitations of opportunities within humanitarian supply chains. Our vision for the journal is for it to be the premier publication choice for humanitarian logistics researchers and a leading knowledge resource for practitioners. We hope to accomplish this by increasing the number of issues and expanding the scope of the journal to include research on not just post-disaster relief but all kinds of humanitarian operations, hereby continuing to emphasize evidence-based research without limiting our researchers in their methodological choices. We plan to not only expand the editorial advisory board but also engage them in the process of taking JHLSCM to the next level. Our EAB members will not just review papers but counsel authors to help them build their papers and by continuing to push for better quality. In addition to academic rigor, “quality” for us also includes dimensions like readability, timeliness, and validity. Papers published in JHLSCM should be readable and understandable by non-academics as well. They should focus on contemporary topics and solve real problems.
Dr. Ira Haavisto is the Director of the HUMLOG Institute at the Hanken School of Economics in Finland. Dr. Nezih Altay is an Associate Professor at the Driehaus College of Business of DePaul University in the United States.
World Food Programme’s Humanitarian Supply Chains
As part of the Kühne Foundation’s certificate program on humanitarian logistics, I have, again, been teaching logistics and supply chain management modules in East Africa during the last couple of weeks. This year, the program was held at the University of Dar es Salaam and the National Institute of Transport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as well as at Makerere University Business School in Kampala, Uganda. A new report, recently published by the World Food Programme (WFP), gives a good real-life overview of humanitarian logistics. Particularly, it demonstrates how WFP (1) deliver goods, how they (2) assist the humanitarian community, (3) innovate supply chain management, (4) develop capacity, and (5) partner with other organizations. WFP’s logistics strategy, “Driving the Supply Chain”, includes four priority areas: Emergency Preparedness and Response, Controls and Risk Reduction, External Service Provision, and Food Assistance Initiatives. It becomes apparent that humanitarian and commercial supply chains are highly interlinked and can learn from each other.
Africa Logistics Initiative
The Kühne Foundation invited me to support its Africa Logistics Initiative. Consequently, I have spent the last weeks teaching in logistics and supply chain management at the National Institute of Transport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It has been a great experience.
