Collaborative Strategies for Humanitarian Logistics with System Dynamics and Project Management

Abstract

Recent disasters such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile in 2010 and the earthquake in Nepal in 2015 have increased the importance of and interest in humanitarian logistics around the globe, given that such events have claimed millions of lives and affected millions more. Such damage could be reduced if improvements were made to logistics operations. In this chapter, we explain the appropriateness of System Dynamics (SD) to study collaboration in humanitarian logistics by describing the stakeholders involved, response phases, flows involved in the humanitarian supply chain, and their interactions. We also provide some adaptions of Project Management with SD in order to provide a tool to improve the planning process of humanitarian operations.