Supply Chain View

I was working in Kenya last week, a long way from the area affected by the droughts, but I realised that in the last few hectic weeks I had not made time to make a donation to the crisis appeal. Perhaps you have been in the same situation. Well, it’s never to late to give, [...]

I’ve just picked up this interactive chart from The Economist. I’m particularly interested in the risk of overheating in the Indian economy, as my most recent trips there certainly make me feel there is a bubble inflating, if only based on the simple heuristic of the number of property speculation SMSs I get on my [...]

(with apologies to Peter Norvig) Some time ago, the wise and well-respected computer scientist Peter Norvig wrote an article called “Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years”. I read it recently and found it so full of good sense I couldn’t resist taking the spirit of Norvig’s thoughts and applying them to supply chain management. Norvig’s [...]

Here is a stirring video from the World Food Programme about their humanitarian logistics capabilities. The scope and scale are remarkable.

Today I’m continuing my analysis of supply chain management in India with some discussion of the economic context. India’s economy is growing very quickly – recently we’ve begun to worry that it’s growing too quickly, running the risk of overheating . But it would be odd if such a rapid transformation of the economy didn’t [...]

I am planning to write a few posts about supply chain management in India. I am in the country working with a local client for a couple of weeks, back for the first time since my 6 weeks living in Delhi earlier in 2010/11. This is a very exciting topic, and though I have been [...]

According to OCHA funding for Logistics Cluster activity for the Pakistan floods is still $5m short of the $15m requirement estimated. All the learning from recent humanitarian emergencies (from the Asian tsunami of 2004 to the Haiti earthquake earlier this year) shows how vital logistics coordination is to an effective response. $15m is small as [...]

Just a quick reminder that the Disasters Emergency Committee is still pushing for funds to help relieve the terrible situation in Pakistan. The NGOs receiving DEC funding have highly developed and professional humanitarian logistics capabilities, which are vital to rapid and effective intervention. You can donate online now here https://www.donate.bt.com/dec_form_pfa.html?p_form_id=PFA45. If you are a UK [...]

Here is something very useful for humanitarian logisticians: the Logistics Operations Guide, or LOG for short, brought to you by the Logistics Cluster. But not only is it useful for those in the humanitarian sector, it is an excellent model for the clear communication of logistics know-how: succint, practical and well-referenced. (The big logo below [...]

Now is clearly the time for reflection on the logistics operations during the response to the Haiti earthquake in January this year (see my posts on articles by Mike Whiting and Maggie Heraty). Dr. Paul S. Auerbach is Professor of Surgery in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. A few [...]