Project HORA-EST: Humanitarian Optimization through Research by Argusi – Envisioning Shorter Times of delivery
Argusi is a research driven SME that possesses deep knowledge about supply chain optimization and collaboration in mainly the commercial sector. Argusi’s expertise focuses on designing optimal supply networks in terms of minimized cost or time-to-consumer. This is done by using state of the art modelling tools and techniques, such as Llamasoft Supply Chain Guru and ESRI ArcGis. Argusi Aid is Argusi’s branch that is focused on the humanitarian sector, established with the mission to enable availability of basic needs for everyone at all times by creating better and faster supply chains.
There is a big gap between commercial and humanitarian supply chain management and logistics. In our western world and in commercial industries, logistics is well-established. Nowadays, it is possible to predict delivery times very accurately. When ordering something, you know in advance at what day and often even in what time window your order will be delivered. Humanitarian supply chains provide a completely different picture. For example, during the Ebola crisis, it took up to three months for the emergency tents to be delivered at their destination. Unfortunately, this is no exception – lead times of two to three months are common practice in the humanitarian sector while the urgency in this sector is usually much higher. People are actually dying during, and even because of these long lead times. The number and size of emergencies have increased over the last years. In responding to these emergencies, supply chain cost add up to about 60% of total response cost.
The problem that Argusi wants to solve is the late and inadequate delivery of relief goods. In general, delivery in the humanitarian sector falters because of a lack of efficient logistics and supply chain management. The contribution to the improvement of efficient logistics and supply chain management will be achieved by using the experience in and learnings from the private sector and translate these into models that fit the situation of the humanitarian sector.
