Transportation Management
Humanitarian logistics require the movement of goods to disaster and crisis regions around the globe, often under time pressure and other challenging conditions including maintaining sustainability standards. The success of these supply chains will depend on transportation choices and the design of its distribution network. This class will look at these choices and practice the design of a humanitarian transportation network to serve typical humanitarian scenarios. We will review the basic theory and logic of transportation management as an integrated part of the end-to-end supply chain, together with managerial best practices. Students will be asked to apply learnings to their own organization, analyse and articulate the differences between individual cases.
Objectives
Understand the role of transportation in the humanitarian supply chain including infrastructure, policies, and conditions on the ground
Distinguish between strategic (long-term), tactical (mid-term), and operational (short-term) levels of decision-making in transportation management
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different modes of transportation and various transportation network design options including trade-offs and conflicting objectives
Recognize that transportation must support strategic priorities like cost, responsiveness, access, precision, and environmental sustainability
Topics
Humanitarian logistics
Sustainability
Supply Chain
Managerial best practice
