This Paper was amongst top-10 winning entries in "Opsyrus 2006", the CoolAvenues.com - OIG (IIM Lucknow) Paper Writing Competition held during Oct-Dec 2006.

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Executive Summary

Disaster management deals with avoiding risks. It involves preparing, supporting, and rebuilding society when natural or man-made disasters occur. Disaster management is a continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate its impact.

A supply chain, or supply network is a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service in physical or virtual manner from supplier to customer. Customers in this case are people facing the crisis. They formed the focus of the entire supply chain development.

The methodology we used in this paper is to first find out the features required in the supply chain and then present) a (adapted) framework that satisfies most of the requirements.

Paper begins with identifying the features that need to be there in a supply chain for disaster management. They are agility, value, visibility and velocity. Next a supply chain model is proposed, called "relief chain". This is followed by detailed discussion on pertinent issues of supply chain, viz. implementation, logistics, information and quality.

Underlying principles behind the whole supply chain is centralized control and decentralized execution.

To implement a supply chain for short duration we suggested the use of 3PL providers for various activities. Thus, the supply chain would be a sequence of 3PL providers. This calls for the need of a coordinating mechanism between them. Based on the framework with time frame and depth of relationship as dimension a suitable relationship is identified.

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* Contributed by: -
Praneet Parate & Anusha Jain,
IIM Lucknow.