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Structuring Humanitarian Supply Chain Knowledge Through a Meta-Modeling Approach

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The Palgrave Handbook of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Abstract

To develop decision support systems (DSS) that improve humanitarian supply chain (HSC) performance, there is a need for methods that support on field data gathering and knowledge structure. We propose a meta-model to structure the knowledge of HSC and to obtain a shared vision of the HSC. It has been developed to provide a framework to class gathered data by connecting it to HSC concepts. The meta-model includes four packages, defining the collaborative ecosystem (context, actors, objectives, and behavior). The concepts gathered during our field research experiences, added to the HSC core literature, have permitted to build the HSC meta-model layer. Models built from this meta-model can be used as knowledge bases for future DSS, dedicated to support vertical and horizontal coordination and collaboration of actors.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Efficiency is a measure of how economically the firm’s resources are utilized when providing a given level of customer satisfaction (Neely, Gregory, and Platts 1995). In the HSC context, it is the ability to avoid wasting resources (materials, energy, efforts, money, and time) in responding to the beneficiaries’ needs.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Disaster Resilience Laboratory for managing the exciting adventure of the Ebola Outbreak field research, and also to share their results and methodologies related to previous field research.

We also thank the Americas IFRC logistic department for their warm welcome to the Panama Regional Logistic Unit facilities, and specially to Mathieu Grenade (former Americas IFRC Logistic Development Coordinator) for sharing his knowledge of the HSC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Toulouse — Mines Albi, Toulouse, France

    Laura Laguna Salvadó, Matthieu Lauras & Frederick Bénaben

  2. University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway

    Tina Comes

Authors
  1. Laura Laguna Salvadó
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  2. Matthieu Lauras
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  3. Tina Comes
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  4. Frederick Bénaben
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura Laguna Salvadó .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hanken School of Economics , Helsinki, Finland

    Gyöngyi Kovács

  2. Hanken School of Economics , Helsinki, Finland

    Karen Spens

  3. Hanken School of Economics , Helsinki, Finland

    Mohammad Moshtari

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© 2018 The Author(s)

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Salvadó, L.L., Lauras, M., Comes, T., Bénaben, F. (2018). Structuring Humanitarian Supply Chain Knowledge Through a Meta-Modeling Approach. In: Kovács, G., Spens, K., Moshtari, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59099-2_16

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