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Aid logistics

On ya bike![1]

by Michael Keizer on May 8, 2009

In some ways, this post wants you to consider the opposite of my previous post (on the use of airships in aid logistics). Don’t ever let it be said that I am not a fence-sitter.

Airships are great at integrating what was a multimodal[2] (part of a) supply chain into a monomodal one: instead of using various transport means, they could in many cases deliver from origin to destination in one go where before we would have to use several transport means.

However, the use airships for aid is still some time away, and even when it finally arrives there will still be destinations that will be very hard for airships to reach. The most apparent of these are dense urban settings: a large airship, although it needs less landing space than a wide-body plane, still needs considerably more space than e.g. a helicopter. As a large part of aid work takes place in these dense urban settings, we will need to look at other solutions for the last mile. This is all the more true for health logistics: as populations urbanise, more and more of the health effort will need to be concentrated in the cities and towns – and in most developing and middle-income countries these are very densely built up.

The easy solution is of course the tried and true combination of truck and car. However, for various reasons this is actually not appropriate in many settings:

  • Cars and trucks are relatively expensive means of transport: not so much in purchase cost (although those are not negligible), but especially in running costs and maintenance.
  • Maintenance might not always be possible: especially in developing countries it is at times difficult to find the necessary spare parts or the skills to maintain cars[3].
  • Trucks and cars add significantly to air pollution, which is already a problem in many cities in developing and (especially) middle-income countries.
  • In the most densely built-up areas, even cars can be impossible to manoeuvre.

So what solutions can we look at?

By far the oldest one is the use of raw manpower: human porters that carry goods wherever they are needed. Obviously, they can get anywhere where people can go, and where labour is cheap this is often the most economical way of transport. However, unless managed very well, porting can be punishing for the people involved, and lead to serious long-term health problems.

A much better solution is the lowly bike[4]. Like porters, it can get almost anywhere  where there are people; if not by riding it, then at least by pushing. It can bear much larger loads (more about that later) but with negligible stress on the body of the biker. And finally, bikes can be repaired by almost any technician worth their salt[5].

New developments in bike design mean that they can be used for much heavier and bulkier loads. A good example is the Big Boda load-carrying bicycle, a design from Worldbike. Bikes like this can successfully compete with cars and trucks in many settings, and should be considered seriously when designing logistics systems for health or aid.

(Images by Kees van Mansom and Worldbike.)

Footnotes

[1] If you wonder what I am talking about: have a look at this list of Australian English vocabulary.

[2] Multi-modal transport in this sense refers to transport using more than one means, e.g. train and truck, or ship-train-truck, etcetera. Strictly speaking, the term is reserved for when we have only a single transport contract, but I will use it in a slightly looser sense here.

[3] This is becoming a serious issue as cars are ‘computerised’ and more and more models cannot be maintained without expensive diagnostic machinery and specialised skills and knowledge.

[4] Yes, I am originally Dutch. Why do you ask?

[5] Obviously, I am not talking about your Bernard Hinault Special.

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Air logistics: are we on the same Page?

by Michael Keizer on May 6, 2009

Wouldn’t it be great if we could transport our goods from one place to another using just one transport means from place of dispatch until the spot where we deliver aid (thus eliminating time and capital intensive loading and unloading activities), staying high above conflicting parties until we have reached the very place where we want to land (thus avoiding highway robbers, pirates, lacking infrastructure, and roadblocks), at relatively high speeds (130 – 160 km/hour), with excellent fuel efficiency (thus dramatically decreasing transport costs) – and all this without having to invest in very expensive infrastructural works?

Well, the technology is there. What we need now is someone to invest in it.

After the dramatic holocaust of the Graf von Hindenburg, airships were off the map for anything remotely interesting. This lasted for quite a while, but the early 1990s saw a resurgence in development efforts for airships. Most of these were unsuccessful and ended in financial problems. However, there are some successful examples as well, e.g. de Zeppelin NT. What is still missing is a large, long-range airship: the ones used now are much smaller than their pre-WWII cousins, and have a much shorter range.

The problem is that the market for the sort of airship that would be useful for aid work is very limited: only activities that normally have high numbers of transit points, have issues with roads leading to their destinations, and have relatively high cargo and passenger number requirements, would be able to sustain these much larger and farther-ranging airships – and that leaves very little but the humanitarian aid effort and the military (and yes, there has been some interest from various military powers in airship development).

So the question is: would we be able to support the development of an airship model suitable for aid work? Or have someone do it for us, e.g. a big donor? It will be clear that supporting the development of a big airship will be impossible for almost any aid agency (with the possible exception of one or two UN agencies) – but would there be a case here for a consortium of aid organisations and/or donors to put money in it?

A number of initiatives have sprung up that seem to answer this in the affirmative; but none have been very successful, possibly partly because support from aid organisations and donors has been totally absent. The potential advantages of using airships for aid work are immense; but nothing will happen without that support.

It is about time we start being less conservative about aid logistics and look at possible revolutions instead of only looking at incremental evolution. And perhaps, in some years, this will not be the only Zeppelin involved in aid:

(Image courtesy J. Rohrer)

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Latest job opportunities (6 May 2009)

by Michael Keizer on May 6, 2009

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Latest job opportunities (2 May 2009)

by Michael Keizer on May 2, 2009

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Latest job opportunities (30 April 2009)

by Michael Keizer on May 1, 2009

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Logistics of swine flu aid

by Michael Keizer on May 1, 2009

Deborah Cannon/AMERICAN-STATESMAN 03/27/06 Michael Leavitt, Secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services talks with an audience at the Hyatt Regency in Austin, Texas on Monday, March 27, 2006. The state held an all-day summit on pandemic flu preparedness efforts. I have had to rewrite this post three times today as new developments rolled in (not the least of which is of course that we are now officially in a pandemic), and as I found more pertinent information

The swine flu pandemic will obviously have a severe impact on our supply chains; however, it will also impact on the demand placed on these supply chains. These demands will come from two sides: the obvious external demand related to the programmed response to the pandemic, but also the less obvious internal demand caused by efforts to protect (and treat) our own staff.

Both will put an increased strain on a supply chain that will already be more vulnerable. Normally, I would have said that this would require forethought and planning, but it seems we are a bit too late for forethought – so let’s stick to planning.

Note that I will write here as if we all work in medical organisations; of course, many of us work in other types of aid work, but as demands in medical aid will be most intense, this presents a ‘worst case’, and although not all of the aspects debated here will be relevant to other organisations, many will.

Much of what I wrote in my post on contingency planning for the supply chain, is applicable to this issue as well. The four-step approach (prioritisation, sensitivity analysis, preparation of plans, resourcing and communication) is valid as well. However, there some things to keep in mind.

One issue that will hit every organisation, will be logistics (including procurement) of goods related to the protection of our staff. It will be necessary to sit down now with whoever in your organisation is in charge of OSH and work out what you will need. Think of protective clothing, microfiltrating face masks, and (depending on whether your staff will be in direct/prolonged contact with influenza patients) many other items. A specific issue is the availability of antivirals. If these are needed in any more than very modest amounts, and you do not have them stockpiled yet, it will be highly unlikely that you will be able to procure them now.

A second step is to look at your organisations programmes, and how they will adapt to the pandemic. Is it likely that your organisation will be involved in the treatment of patients? If so, you will need to start planning for that now: get your programme people to give you an idea of where things might go – again, developing a couple of likely scenarios – see what would be demanded from logistics in these scenarios, and how you can address those demands. I cannot stress enough that now is the time to pipe up if your conclusion would be that logistics cannot address the demands in one or more of the scenarios: both top management and your programme departments should know. Conversely, it would also be a good idea what would be your best guess of what you can do.

In case of a pandemic, your biggest headache (next to keeping your supply chain from collapsing) will probably be procurement: demand for the same limited amount of resources will increase tremendously (share prices for manufacturers of antivirals are already soaring), and you will be just one of the very many customers. So start talking now with your suppliers and see what can still be done. You might already be too late, but you will definitely be too late if you wait much longer.

As with the protection of your supply chain, using a methodical approach to the increased demand caused by the pandemic is essential, and the same four-step approach can be used successfully. However, in the end it is again not so much how you plan, or what you plan, but that you plan which will make all the difference. Don’t be caught on the hop.

(Image by Ryan Schultz. Some rights reserved.)

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The importance of contingency planning

by Michael Keizer on April 29, 2009

Slightly over a week ago, I was trying to write an article for this blog about how health issues could impact logistics. I just could not make it work: the main health impact on logistics would be from a pandemic, and although that seemed pretty realistic to me, I also felt that my readers would probably not see it as realistic enough to spare it a second thought. That was a real issue for me, because the main reason why I wanted to write the post was to get people thinking about logistics contingency planning for a pandemic.

Of course, I am now kicking myself for not have written what would have been a fairly prophetic post – and perhaps have influenced one or two people to take some action.

So my apologies for being late – let’s just say that this is a mistake I will not make very soon again.

The impact

Let’s just assume for the moment that swine flu will go pandemic. What effects will this have on our supply chains?

The most obvious one is that it will put severe demands on it. We will need to have massive amounts of medical goods at the right spot, at the right moment. How to deal with this issue merits a separate post, which you can find here.

Perhaps more insidious is the fact that every supply line depends on people – and in case of a flu pandemic, many of those people will be incapacitated (by illness or death), or be subject to isolation or quarantine. This will mean a severe blow for many of our supply chains: without truck drivers, store managers, clerks, and purchasers, our supply lines will soon break down.

Furthermore, quarantine measures might also mean that transport will be infinitely more difficult: if we can’t have trucks or planes come into the country where we work, goods will not come in either.

How to deal with it

So how to deal with this? At this stage, preparation would include four steps.

The most important issue, which needs immediate action, is to prioritise our logistics: which goods for which programmes are most needed. I would suggest to divide them into three to five groups, ranging from “immediately indispensable” to “doesn’t matter if it’s a couple of months late”. Note that we are not talking about articles here, but about article/programme groups: article 1 for programme X might be in a different group than the same article for programme Y. This needs to be done now: you do not want to have these discussions while you are in the middle of a crisis.

A second issue that needs to be dealt with concurrently with the prioritisation, is a sensitivity analysis of our supply chains: which parts our supply chains will be most vulnerable to disruption? It could be very helpful to develop a couple (not too many) scenarios and see how they impact our supply chains. When doing this, don’t forget that our supply chains extend beyond our own organisation: include the possibility that e.g. your main supplier will be severely impacted, or that your main transporter will be knocked out. Also look outside the logistics departments, e.g. by taking into account that your programme staff might be so severely overburdened that they will no longer be able to make forecasts or report regularly.

Based on the prioritisation and the sensitivity analysis, prepare contingency plans that deal with the various scenarios in such a way that (as far as possible) goods from the highest priority groups will be where they are needed, when they are needed. These contingency plans could include e.g. stockpiling (explicitly taking the risk of increased expiries), already hiring extra staff, and many other possible actions. What it exactly will entail for your organisation will depend on many factors, and there is definitely no one-size-fits-all solution. It will be important here to think laterally and come up with creative solutions: this is an extraordinary situation, and will need extraordinary solutions.

The fourth and last step is resourcing and communication: make sure that you have the (financial) resources to implement your contingency plans – which will mean that you will need to ‘sell’ your plans now to senior management of your organisation – and communicate the plans to all people involved, which would include practically everyone within your organisation, and quite a number of people outside it.

I can hardly stress enough that these steps need to be taken now: if and when the crisis arrives, it will be too late. You might counter that nothing ever goes according to plan, and that the crisis that will really happen is unlikely to be the one you planned for; that might be true, but having these plans and resources at the ready will give you an enormously increased resiliency that will enable you to cope much better than otherwise. To quote general Dwight D. Eisenhower: “plans are nothing; planning is everything”.

A call for action

Go now to the person(s) responsible for logistics planning in your organisation, and ask them whether they have prepared contingency plans for a severe pandemic impacting on your supply chain. And don’t let them get away with generalities; things are much too serious for that. And if you yourself are responsible: did you do your homework? Finally: please come back here and let us know what you did: at this stage, we should all learn from each other.

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Overhead, HQ, and the global financial crisis

by Michael Keizer on April 25, 2009

Ritratto di Frà Luca Pacioli (1495). Luca Pacioli (1445 - 1517) is the central figure in this painting exhibited in the Museo e Gallerie di Capodimonte in Napoli (Italy). The painter is unknown, although some people are convinced the painter is Jacopo de#39; Barbari (1440-1515).

How much should we spend on non-project costs, a.k.a. ‘overhead’ or ‘HQ’? Ten percent? Twenty? More? Or less? Please think about this for a couple of minutes before you read on, and define for yourself what would be a reasonable percentage in the organisation that you work for.

So now I am going to tell you that whatever percentage you came up with is wrong.

Nasty, huh?

My point here is that we should really stop thinking in percentages. Sure, it sounds nice that we can tell people that we spend only 15% on ‘overhead’, but it is totally meaningless.

First of all, we have these people called accountants, who are very good at defining ‘accounting principles’ in whatever way is needed to present the best picture.[1] When we say that we spend 15% on overhead, we actually say, “15% of our expenditure is attributed to overhead, but that could be any odd (or even) number under different accounting and presentation principles”.

Furthermore, defining how much we want spend on organisation (shall we just stop using those disparaging words ‘overhead’ and ‘HQ’?) in terms of total expenditure, or even as an absolute number, really is utter nonsense. No self-respecting company would say at the start of the fiscal year, “let’s spend so-and-so much on our corporate organisation – doesn’t matter on what, you can just spend this amount”[2]. Instead, they look at what support and control activities are needed from corporate, and then make first an activity budget, and subsequently base a financial budget on that. Similarly, we should define what level and manner of support and control we need from our central departments, and then try to cost it. In the end, the only thing that matters here is how the people we try to aid get most bang for the buck – and if that is more by spending it on support, because that will increase our efficiency in the field by so much, than that is where we need to spend it.

Over at humanitarian.info, Paul Currion makes the very astute observation that the current global financial crisis might actually help us to look at these issues in a more rational way. In short, he contends that the resulting squeeze on our budgets might force us to look more at efficiency, and do that in a less mechanical and more rational way than just at expenditure in the field versus at HQ. He might be right – I definitely hope so.

(Image: Ritratto di Frà Luca Pacioli (1495). Luca Pacioli (1445 – 1517) was, amongst many other things, the inventor of double-entry bookkeeping, a system we still use today. He was also the first to realise that profit and loss were no absolutes but depended on how you accounted for them.)

Footnote

 

[1] I have been an accountant and an auditor. Believe me, I know.

[2] Show me a company that does, and I show you a bankrupt in the making.

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The power of the pipeline

by Michael Keizer on April 24, 2009

Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline by rickzWhen preparing a new order, you take into account goods that are still in transit (a.k.a. the pipeline), right? Right, so we need not discuss things further.

Or do we?

In practice, there are a number of issues that surround the pipeline that complicate things and ensure that in reality, we often incorporate incorrect pipeline figures in our calculations.

  • Time. When do you expect the goods to arrive? Tomorrow? Next week? In a year? And that date, does it relate to arrival in your transit port, a country away? Or at the airport next door? And how long will clearing and onward transport to your projects take? In the end, the main issue is when the goods will arrive where they are needed, in your programme; all other considerations are important only for the purpose of determining that date. However, in the settings where we work, they are often difficult to predict. An example: some years ago, I was involved in importing a large consignment for an African ministry of health. We felt that we had done our planning quite well, taking normal transit and clearing times into account and adding a buffer based on the normal spread. What we did not know, however, was that the ministry of agriculture had ordered a massive consignment of fertiliser – and when I say “massive”, I mean tens of bulk shiploads, all arriving at more or less the same time. This consignment arrived at the same time as our containers, congesting the port of entry to a point where we could not land the containers for several days, and then struggled for several weeks to find onwards transport capacity. I learned from this the value of growing and maintaining an extensive information network in whichever location you find yourself. If I had talked with some people in the main transport companies, I would soon enough have heard that their capacity was fully booked out.
  • Confirmation. You know you ordered 20 boxes of paravenozole, delivery at your warehouse due next week, but did you actually get a confirmation from your supplier? Too often we do not insist on binding timelines, with obvious results; and if we do, we do not enforce them well enough. This is improving, though: I have seen various solutions to this problem. The one I like best is to have ‘order managers’: dedicated staff who take over the management of the order once it has been placed, ensuring that confirmations are received and regularly following up status with the supplier.
  • Matching.You know that there are 20 boxes of paravenozole in the next plane to arrive, but… for which project are they? And to cover which order? The supplier of course uses a different system of identifying orders than you do, let alone of article coding. So how can you match this? Obviously, the key here is keeping your paperwork in order, ensuring a clear trail from project order ID, to your order ID, to the suppliers order ID. In reality, this is slightly more complicated than it sounds because we often need to split up orders, and might have on-the-run changes. And of course, we are not talking of one consignment with one type of goods for one project on one order… However, none of this is insurmountable. The most important thing here is discipline: the discipline to document continuously what we do, why we do it, and what are the results – in such a way that we can easily find things back. It does not really matter whether we have an old-fashioned paper-based system or a state-of-the-art ERP system: the principles of documenting and cross-referencing remain the same.
  • Units. A small last issue, but one that does trip us up sometimes: did we order twenty boxes of paravenozole, each of 100 doses, 2000 doses in total? Or twenty overboxes, each containing 50 boxes, 100,000 doses in total? Make sure that you document, double-check, and feedback to your projects and your supplier in case you have any doubt.

Taking into account your pipeline figures is your an essential part of order management; and although it may take a lot of work, most of it should be routine activities that can be done at a clerical level. Your pipeline is your connection to your future deliveries, and can give you an invaluable idea of that future for a very small investment.

(Image by rickz.)

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What to bring on a logistics deployment

by Michael Keizer on April 22, 2009

The ever-interesting Chris Blattman published a list of things to bring for field work. A very useful list, I should add, and some of the suggestions in the comments are very worthwhile too. Just don’t try to bring everything that’s in there.

So what specifics would I add for a logistics deployment?

  • A clicker (one of those thumb model counters). Will help you immensely during verification activities.
  • Cling wrap. Has more uses than I can easily mention here, but for starters: repairing leaky containers, repairing car windows… actually, combined with some duct tape, it can repair almost anything — even, in an extreme situation, some bodily harm (but get to a doctor ASAP).
  • So the next one, obviously, is duct tape. More uses than you or I can even imagine.

  • Sticky labels, A6 size (4 on an A4 page), printable. Again, more uses than you would expect.
  • Permanent markers. You will always see that you need them when there are none around.
  • An el-cheapo digital camera, preferably one that can make rudimentary videos. Worth its weight in gold for training purposes.
  • The electronic version of the ordering catalogue of whichever organisation you are working for. Your organisation is too small to have a catalogue?[1] Get one from a bigger organisation with similar activities (so in the medical area the MSF catalogues, for education UNICEF, for water and sanitation OXFAM, etcetera). This will help you immensely when ordering yourself or when getting people to be more specific on their orders.
  • Your organisation’s logistics, admin, and financial procedures in electronic form, including the standard forms used.

So what do you take with you when you go to the field?

Footnote

[1] Actually, your organisation is not too small. If it is big enough to have more than one programme, it is big enough to have a (rudimentary) catalogue.

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