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Mapping

Once the supply chain strategy (as we will see, in this case Reverse Supply Chain) and the design are decided, the division of the geography into various segments is important. These regions would have focal points which would collect inventory from the participants of the contractual agreements in the event of a disaster.
The regions would be decided based on an overall mapping of the geography based on the risk potentials prevalent. For example, a country like India has threats of earthquakes in the west, landslides in the north, floods in the east and tsunami in the south. Depending on these criteria and the recurrence and severity of such disasters, India can be divided into many regions (easiest would be 4 based on geographical directions). Mapping capabilities could be developed in-house or collaborations with organizations like MapAction could be made. Such capability could provide risk assessment data for specific disaster vulnerability and help segregation of mapped regions. (See Appendix)

The Concept of the Reverse Supply Chain

Based on the basic principles of the supply chain and the issues involved in disaster management, a supply chain model has been designed that shall act as the backbone of all operations leading to delivery of relief at the disaster site. The model looks at the supply chain in a reversed perspective i.e. material flow is many-to-one as opposed to the one-tomany practice in the traditional supply chain. In this case both the material and information flow shall be reversed and hence the name Reverse Supply Chain.

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* Contributed by: -
Madhuker Priyesh & Varun Ramanan,
IIM Lucknow.