When challenges need an evaluation: for operational excellence and sustainability orientation in humanitarian supply and logistics management

Abstract

Humanitarian supply and logistics management (HSLM) is becoming an important research area for governments and relief aid operational managers in developing successful practices in disaster management. It is vital for humanitarian operations to deal with the probable challenges to HSLM for operational excellence by focussing on sustainability. Therefore, the prime contribution of this article is to identify key challenges to HSLM and to analyze causal relationships between these challenges for developing sustainability in relief operations in a developing economy– the Indian perspective. The listed key challenges were analyzed using explanatory factor analysis and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory analysis. A total of 136 responses were received from Indian humanitarian sector respondents. From findings, ‘Governance and regulatory’; ‘Technology and Facilities’ and ‘Strategic’ challenges are the cause group challenges. This research is invaluable for practitioners, policymakers, NGOs and communities in bringing synergies between humanitarian operations and operational excellence to accomplish sustainability orientation in systems.

Keywords:

• Humanitarian supply and logistics management
• operational excellence
• challenges
• sustainability
• DEMATEL – explanatory factor analysis
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sachin Kumar Mangla

Sachin Kumar Mangla is working as a Professor of Knowledge Management and Business Decision Making, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. Dr Sachin is working in the field of Green and Sustainable Supply Chain and Operations; Industry 4.0; Circular Economy; Decision Making and Modelling. He has a teaching experience of more than five years in Supply Chain and Operations Management and Decision Making, and currently associated in teaching with various universities in UK, Turkey, India, China, France, etc. He is committed to do and promote high quality research. He has published/presented several papers in repute international/national journals (International Journal of Production Economics; International Journal of Production Research; Production Planning and Control; Business Strategy and the Environment; Journal of Cleaner Production; Annals of Operations Research; Transportation Research Part – D; Transportation Research Part – E; Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews; Resource Conservation and Recycling; Information System Frontier; Management Decision; International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications; Benchmarking an International Journal; Industrial Data and Management System; International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management) and conferences (POMS, SOMS, IIIE, CILT - LRN, GLOGIFT). He has an h-index 35, i10-index 65, Google Scholar Citations of around 4000. He is involved in editing couple of Special issues as a Guest Editor in Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations, and Resources, Recycling and Conservation, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Resource Policy, Journal of Cleaner Production, and ‘Technological Forecasting and Social Change’ on various issues of 'Industry 4.0 and Circular Economy' and Green and Sustainable Supply Chains Performance Improvement' and ‘Food Supply Chains’ ‘and ‘Industry 4.0, Cleaner Production, Circular Economy and Ethical Business Development’.Currently, he is also involved in several research projects on various issues and applications of Circular economy and Sustainability. Among them, he is responsible for knowledge based decision model in "Enhancing and implementing knowledge based ICT solutions within high risk and uncertain conditions for agriculture production systems (RUC-APS)", European Commission RISE scheme, €1.3M. Recently, he has also received a grant as a PI from British Council - Newton Fund Research Environment Links Turkey/UK - Circular and Industry 4.0 driven sustainable solutions for reducing food waste in supply chains in Turkey. He is also working with USERC (Uttarakhand Science Education & Research Centre), Govt of Uttarakhand, India for managing food waste in Circular Economy. He is also a professional member of Indian Institution of Industrial Engineers (India); OPERATIONAL RESEARCH SOCIETY OF INDIA; Society of Operations Management (SOMS); Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Society; System Dynamics Society, UK.

Sunil Luthra

Sunil Luthra is working as an assistant professor, Ch. Ranbir Singh State Institute of Engineering & Technology , Jhajjar, Haryana, India. He has been associated with teaching for the last 18 years. He has contributed over 150 research papers in international referred and national journals, and conferences at the international and national levels. His scholarly work has also been acknowledged in several international journals of repute such as the JCP, IJPE, PPC, IJPR, RSER, RCR, EGY, JRPO and many more, and conference of repute like SOM-14, NITIE – POMS, AGBA, GLOGIFT 14 and GLOGIFT 15 etc. His research is in the spotlight. His works got more than 5000 Citations (h-index = 36). His RG score is higher than 95% of Research Gate members. His specific areas of interest are operation management; green supply chain management; sustainable supply chain management; sustainable consumption and production; reverse logistics; Industry 4.0; renewable/sustainable energy technologies and business sustainability etc.