Measuring and improving the impact of humanitarian logistics consulting

Abstract

Humanitarian operations are under increasing pressure to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. To support them, a small industry of consultants and other advisors has developed, most of which work pro bono. This article addresses the question of interest to both international humanitarian organisations and their helpers, which is, how to measure and manage the impact of these helpers. Action research based upon interviews and workshops arrives at a conceptual framework to project the effects of humanitarian logistics consulting interventions, key performance indicators and best practices for the governance and steering of humanitarian logistics consulting projects.

Keywords:

• Logistics consulting
• humanitarian logistics
• performance measurement
• performance management
• conceptual framework
• action research

Acknowledgements

This article is based on the work submitted as the master thesis of Federico Gatti to the Chair of Logistics Management at ETH Zurich. The thesis was conferred the ‘HUMLOG Best Master Thesis Award 2018’ by the Hanken School of Economics, a prize given annually for the best thesis on a topic in humanitarian logistics. The authors acknowledge the support of the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Stephen J. Childe, and the continued and constructive comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers, which led to a substantially improved paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Source: “Annual Report 2018”, Retrieved from https://www.icrc.org/en/document/annual-report-2018; November 30, 2019.

2 Source: “12 things you may not know about WFP – Factsheet”, Retrieved from https://www.wfp.org/publications/12-things-you-may-not-know-about-wfp-factsheet, and “Update on food procurement”, Retrieved from https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000104720/download/; November 30, 2019.

3 The Logistics Cluster supports the coordination of logistics activities among humanitarian organizations through stakeholder management, enhancement of logistics preparedness, development of operational capacity and through learning from best logistics practice (Source: https://logcluster.org/). See also the Logistics Cluster’s “Annual Report 2018”, Retrieved from https://logcluster.org/sites/default/files/logisticscluster_annualreport_2018_0.pdf; November 15, 2019.

4 The TNT–WFP partnership was a collaboration between logistics service provider TNT and the World Food Programme (WFP). TNT engaged in knowledge transfer and training to help the WFP increase its preparedness and improve its emergency response (Samii and Van Wassenhove 2004).

5 The consulting tools deployed for the projects in Stage 1 of the framework are non-exhaustive.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephan M. Wagner

Stephan M. Wagner is Professor, holds the Chair of Logistics Management, and is Faculty Director of the HumOSCM Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Current research interests include the management of startups as suppliers, supplier innovation, digitalization, supply chain sustainability, and humanitarian operations and supply chain management. His work has been published in management journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, or Journal of Business Research, as well as operations management journals, such as Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, Journal of Supply Chain Management, or Journal of Business Logistics.

Bublu Thakur-Weigold

Bublu Thakur-Weigold is Associate Director Programs of the HumOSCM Lab at the Chair of Logistics Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Over the past years, she has gained extensive teaching and research experience in the area of humanitarian operations and supply chain management. Previously, she worked at Hewlett-Packard as an internal supply chain consultant, instructor, and program manager. Bublu holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master of Science in International Logistics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Federico Gatti

Federico Gatti is the Business Intelligence, Planning and Execution Lead for Personal Systems in the Northern Europe Market at HP International Sàrl, based in Meyrin (Geneva), Switzerland. He obtained a Master of Science in Management of Technology from the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft University of Technology, including a two-semester exchange at ETH Zurich within the ‘Swiss-European Mobility Program’ framework. He conducted research and wrote his master thesis as an exchange student under the supervision of the Chair of Logistics Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).

Jonas Stumpf

Jonas Stumpf is the Director Global Programs at HELP Logistics AG, a humanitarian logistics consulting organization, based in Schindellegi, Switzerland. He holds a Diploma in Business Administration with a major in International Management and Logistics from the University of Mannheim, Germany.