Streamlining humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains : Anticipation capability for higher responsiveness

Purpose – Over the last decade, temporary supply chains (TSCs) have become a well-recognized logistics model. In TSCs, supply chain members are organized for an ad hoc project; they pool resources in order to make the project successful. Although it might be perceived that TSCs are unstable due to their temporary nature, this paper aims to discuss how TSCs can be managed so as to be both stable and agile, while achieving the stated objectives; since the stability-agility context could be really challenging in humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains, this is the one that has been selected. Design/methodology/approach – The authors reviewed the literature, research reports and electronic documents on humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains, to understand the main challenges in terms of managerial and social impacts of logistical operations in a disaster context. Findings – The disaster context is very peculiar, since it requires tremendous agility when a natural or man-made catastrophe hits, so that as many lives as possible can be saved and that the situation could get back rapidly to a relatively normal level. The paper shows that TSCs require an advanced level of time and organizational stability of the human and material resources involved in order to be highly flexible. In other words, an efficient TSC relies on “anticipated responsiveness”, a major managerial challenge in the years to come. Originality/value – The paper clarifies the management of humanitarian and peacekeeping supply chains and identifies the importance of anticipation capability to improve logistical responsiveness.