10.06.2020 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Krichelle Medel, Winner of The HUMLOG Institute’s Best Thesis Award 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am Krichelle Medel, this year\u2019s winner of HUMLOG Best Thesis Award. I am an MPhil degree holder from the Institute for Manufacturing in the University of Cambridge under the programme of Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management. Being an international student from the disaster-prone country of the Philippines, I realised that I was in a great position to study resilience within disaster management supply networks with the guidance of subject matter experts from the University of Cambridge. I was motivated to study this topic not only with the goal of contributing something new to academic literature, but also of providing new insights that can be applied by humanitarian actors in my home country as well as in other developing countries. However nerve-wracking, it is immensely fulfilling to have finished a thesis of this quality. The process of writing this thesis involved traveling 6000 miles to the Philippines, and the participation of organisations leading Philippine disaster operations from the private, public and humanitarian sectors. Being awarded as HUMLOG\u2019s Best Thesis for 2020 was something I honestly did not expect but was indeed a very pleasant surprise. I take pride and honour from this recognition and will use it as an inspiration to continue forwarding socially relevant initiatives and studies. I hope you find time to read my blog entry below and can take some new insights with you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The increase in the frequency in disaster\noccurrence has pushed humanitarian actors and government agencies to create a\nmore responsive disaster management system. Humanitarian actors and government\nagencies are the main players at the forefront of disaster management\noperations (DMOs). But what is the role of the private sector in disaster\nmanagement operations which are equally affected by such calamities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The local government (public sector) is\nusually expected to lead disaster management for regions within their\njurisdiction. While this is the case, it is important to recognise that the\ntask to rebuild the communities cannot solely rely on the government\u2019s efforts.\nIn many cases, especially in developing countries, the government\u2019s capacity is\nnot enough to address the concerns of all the lives affected by a disaster.\nDifferent humanitarian organisations aid through donation of relief goods, medical\nsupport, and assistance for community rehabilitation. Beyond these, critical\nsupport and resources such as transportation, infrastructure, electric and\ncommunication systems also play important roles in the disaster management\nsupply network. For a developing country like the Philippines, most of these\nresources are owned by private corporations. Academic literature in the realm\nof humanitarian logistics usually recognises the role of the private sector as\nphilanthropical in nature, where they usually provide goods and financial\nassistance to beneficiaries or become procurement partners of humanitarian\nactors. Such roles, while very much appreciated, most often only affect the\nshort-term response to disasters. Having control on many critical resources, indeed\nthe private sector can be better involved, or rather, ingrained in resilient\ndisaster management supply networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My dissertation answered the research\nquestion: \u201cHow can resilience be built\nwithin DMSN through cross-sector collaborations?\u201d<\/em>. The dissertation\nanalysed resilience building<\/em> within disaster management supply networks (DMSNs)<\/em>\nenabled by cross-sector collaboration<\/em>,\nfocusing on the role of the private sector. From past literature, DMSN\nresilience criteria were identified to be robustness, flexibility, velocity and\nvisibility. Robustness pertains to how a supply chain can resist disruption\nfrom disasters. Flexibility is the ability of the supply chain to quickly\nreconfigure itself to minimise disruption. Velocity pertains to how fast the\nresources flow from the suppliers to beneficiaries. Lastly, visibility is how\ntransparent critical information is available to all stakeholders. As another\nlayer of analysis, DMSN capabilities as outcomes of collaboration activities\nwere identified and associated with these resilience criteria. All these\nelements were built into the resulting DMSN Collaboration-Resilience Model\nwhich was applied to a case study of the Philippine DMSN. Existing cross-sector\ncollaboration activities were identified within the Philippine disaster\nmanagement operations. A causal analysis of each collaboration activity and its\noutcome is done to identify relationships between collaboration types and\nresilience constructs. Based on these results, patterns were identified and\ndependencies between collaboration and resilience are defined. Collective DMSN\nresilience (DMSNRES) enabled by existing cross-sector collaboration activities\nis evaluated against a future disaster scenario to identify resilience gaps.\nThese gaps were used to identify new cross-sector collaboration opportunities,\nillustrating the continuous process of resilience building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The dissertation ultimately found that cross-sector collaboration builds resilience in DMSNs\nthrough capacity building, sourcing redundancy, information reliability,\nand logistics responsiveness. From literature,\nprivate sector collaboration operates within short-term donations in the form\nof money, logistics (e.g. lending of transportation assets), and procurement\npartnerships. This research provided new insights on how private sector can be\ninvolved within a DMO through collaboration with the government and other NGOs.\nIt augments existing literature on private sector involvement in DMOs where\ncommon perception is that the sector is only involved in short-term response\nand recovery activities. This study found that the private sector can be\noperationally involved not just in post-disaster activities, but also in\nmitigation and preparation phases as well. This then sets a new baseline for\nfurther research on private sector involvement within DMOs. As this study\nprovided a novel framework to analyse collaboration activities and its impact\nto DMSN resilience, future work could be done by applying the model to further\ncases such as other countries\u2019 DMSNs, or to more specific contexts such as\ninter-organisational collaborations rather than big sectors. A more detailed\nassessment method against a future disaster will prove relevance for the model\nin providing practical insights on how resilience can be built in DMSNs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With disasters becoming more complex and frequent by the day, the need for every sector of the society to contribute to disaster risk reduction is continuously intensified. While this research was done in the context of natural disasters, I feel strongly about the immense need for stronger cross-sector collaboration now more than ever, that a pandemic is affecting the lives of almost everyone around the world. I have seen the private sector step up in a way that we probably have seldomly seen before. I\u2019ve seen companies converting their manufacturing lines from gin to ethyl alcohol production, as well as converting manufacturing lines for hygiene products into face mask production facilities. Beyond manufacturing companies\u2019 own supply chain flexibility to adapt to the needs of the society, other companies focusing on services provided support for the needs of the medical front-liners such as hotels and dormitories providing board and lodging for our modern-day heroes. With the suspension of public transportation, many bus companies also stepped up to provide shuttle services to healthcare workers as well as the ordinary people that are part of their companies\u2019 skeletal workforces. Several corporations are now also coming together to launch enterprise recovery programs for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). These are just few of the many stories of the society coming together in the fight against COVID-19. Each sector of the society can take part in disaster management operations to reduce unpredictability, lives impacted, and increase speed of response and recovery. Each sector of the society can be of great contribution not only during post-disaster response and recovery, but also during – disaster mitigation and preparedness phase. As such, this research echoes the call for everyone \u2013 public, humanitarian, private and the academic sectors to be more involved in strengthening our communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to the thesis here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To know more about the award, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 10.06.2020 By Krichelle Medel, Winner of The HUMLOG Institute’s Best Thesis Award 2020 I am Krichelle Medel, this year\u2019s winner of HUMLOG Best Thesis Award. 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