Hi, I'm Rebecca Turner, adjunct professor of logistics in complex humanitarian emergencies at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory. I currently work for the Global Rapid Response Team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a Field Logistician. I have been deployed over that last few months to Angola for the yellow fever response, and was previously deployed for cholera work in Haiti with the CDC as well. In this lecture, I will demonstrate the scope of humanitarian logistics in emergency response and how critical that role is in response programming and efficacy. Humanitarian logistics is the process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of goods and materials for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of vulnerable people in disaster and conflict environments. Humanitarian logisticians or humlogs, loggies, can be deployed to respond to war, disease, famine, areas with internally displaced persons or civil strife, as well as natural disasters. During these emergencies, the humanitarian logistics activities can include leadership, communication, procurement, transportation and shipping, warehousing and storage, supply chain, inventory management, materials handling and distribution, cold chain logistics, reverse logistics, physical security/lodging, and personnel security. Take the case of the 2016 Nepal earthquake. The logistics cluster of the United Nations, headed up by the World Food Program, reported handling 35,600 metric tons of cargo for 164 different organizations, via road and air. Mainly focusing on transportation, shipping, materials handling and distribution, as well as inventory management, warehousing and storage. As an emergency response logistician, who might you be serving, in what areas of work? You can find yourself in projects ranging from operationalizing specimen collection materials for an outbreak response under a work area humanitarian action and operations, to doing something entirely different like installing the cold chain for an immunization campaign. As under the auspices of building capacity and working on preparedness. And an important to note that logistics, it's a cross-cutting discipline in which the logistician may find themselves providing support in any combination of technical and work areas. When we discuss the health humanitarian supply chain, it's important to remember that that supply chain starts with donation, whether commodity, personnel, or money from governments, organizations, companies, or individuals. Next, goods are procured and pre-positioned in the warehouse at the country level. A rapid assessment is completed for the required goods to be dispatched from the stock in the warehouse. Then the health suppliers exports the goods to the response country. Upon receipt of these goods in country, the organization must ensure they have a point of contact to sign as a local consignee and facilitate the customs procedures in order to actually have the materials cleared for distribution. Oftentimes, this part of supply chains is the most weak and can cause delays to international response. From there, especially when looking at vaccine, reagents, rapid tests and and other temperature sensitive materials, cold storage must be considered to keep the chain of custody, which ensures quality of the materials is in place. Lastly, the goods are transported to the end user, whether it be the affected population or local government staff. How do logistics differ in complex humanitarian emergencies versus private sector logistics? In complex humanitarian emergencies, we work with partners like UNICEF, Red Cross, host nation governments, World Food Program, Ministry of Health, even the military. Efficacy and performance are measured by lives saved, not in dollars. We also work around political and time zone constraints because of reliance on pleasing donors for continued funding and local government for continued access. Environmental living conditions may be harsh or something you're unfamiliar with. Logistics management is more difficult because established infrastructure can be poor quality. There's also a specific relief operation for a specific area, for a given period of time. We usually also start from scratch, learning new ministry processes and partner collaboration processes as well. Humanitarian workers must have consent to enter these territories and work on specific deliverables. Gaps inabson human resources exists as well for professional logisticians in the humanitarian sector. For example, this is a warehouse that you would typically work in during an emergency response, right? Wrong, a more realistic warehousing situation for emergency response logistics looks a little bit more like this. In order to effectively manage the storage and distribution of materials in an emergency situation, we must determine the objective of the facility. Will we own it or will we outsource it? Evaluate options that are available. Measure or estimate the quantities of products to be stored there. Identify throughput velocities, including incoming goods, customer orders, inter-facility transfers, dispatches, donations, and returns. We must identify the nature of orders and specific picking requirements. For example, is picking performed in containers, pallets, cartons, or single units? We must also assess which items, if possible, can or should utilize adjacency. Actions that have a lot of movement between them should be located close to each other. Train the employees on what right looks like, as well as safety requirements. Document processes for warehouse management, also consider utilizing a warehouse management system, if Internet is in fact available. Invest in radio frequency equipment. Also, make teamwork and communication a priority. When it comes to materials handling and warehouse management, principles to consider include creating a receiving loading area and shipping area. Allocating packing areas with supplies and storage areas for bulk, loose issue as well as heavy labor. Controlling and tracking the inventory. Communicating volumes and functional requirements. Keeping the product handling by people to a minimum, ideally three to five touches of the product while goods are in the warehouse. Abusing the warehouse staff. This may seem obvious, but oftentimes in the field, these people are taken for granted, when they're the ones who can truly impact the turnaround time on a project. So allocating a special area for breaks and sitting with a small fridge and a coffee or tea maker, or even providing water can make a huge difference. An aspect of inventory management within the warehouse, which is often overlooked, is that of positioning within the warehouse, organization and labeling. There are a hundred ways to set up the warehouse but they key is to be consistent. If you label aisle, section, level, position, be sure that the staff are trained to understand this so that they do not slot the items by section, aisle, position, level for example. Items should be matching by bay so that labor intensive items are low bay, and less labor intensive items are high bay. Inbound orders should also be managed prior to receipt and slotting within the warehouse. This can greatly enhance coordination and communication for the response, and will enable the logistician to provide accurate status information to the program side upon request. It can also enhance the management of incoming shipments to know and create relationships with your carriers and suppliers. Inventory management may sometimes be more efficient when done manually with pen and paper. Not for data aggregation reporting purposes necessarily, but for tracking stock levels themselves. Purchasing items for mission support is always on the leading edge of the response. Develop a protocol for requests and tracking of those requests. For example, ordering a microscope. What type? What magnification? Recommended source voltage? When is it needed? The sustainment, etc. Keep in mind the economic order quantity by looking at the cost benefit analysis of paying for storage versus ordering ordering costs. Total logistics cost is important to take into account throughout your deployment. It can be easy to get pulled into the weeds when you're only looking at one variable in this equation. But remember, if you're pressing for additional budget allocation on that variable, that it may end up negatively impacting how much you can spend on other aspects of the operation.
