A Qualitative Analysis of Inventory Management Strategies in Humanitarian Logistics Operations

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the special characteristics of Inventory Management for humanitarian operations. Each year, many natural and man-made disasters occur, affecting thousands of people around the globe. During these catastrophes, both, government and humanitarian organizations, face great logistics challenges in which the main objective is to satisfy the needs of people touched by such disaster, to mitigate their suffering. To achieve such objective, an adequate Inventory Management Strategy in these logistics operations plays a crucial role at each echelon of the Supply Chain. This paper also aims to identify the state-of-the-art of Inventory Management Strategies and models used for humanitarian logistics operations as well as commercial models with the special features related to it. It includes its categorization according to crucial criteria and the identification of trends, gaps and challenges in this field, in order to provide valuable insights for future research in this domain.