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Simple relationship between different parties is apt for disaster management situation. Reason being the main principle behind this kind of supply chain is centralized planning; which restricts the depth of relationship to buy/sell relationship where the information exchanged between parties is purely transactional. Also, the time frame is short-term (< 1 year).

IV. Logistics

Logistics is central to humanitarian relief. The speed and efficacy of relief programs depends on the ability of logisticians to procure, transport, receive, and distribute supplies to the site of relief efforts. An effectively structured and managed relief supply chain can save lives.

Logistics would need to have following characteristics: -
1) It must move freight and people by multiple modes (Land, Sea, Air), through different terminals.
2) Distance traveled is often long.
3) Transportation needs to be fast and flexible.

The network design that would be suitable in disaster management is a variant of, "All shipment via Central DC (Distribution Center)". In this model, suppliers send their shipment to the DC and the DC then forwards appropriate shipments to the retail store. Generally DCs served the purpose of warehouse and transfer location. This model saves on both outbound and inbound costs.

In case of disaster management, we'll use a variant of this model. In this all shipments would be routed through a sequence of DCs. It would have following nodes:

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