Supply Chain Visibility in the Humanitarian Context During the Last Mile of Delivery : A case study at the United Nations Population Fund in Zimbabwe

Abstract: The global business environment is rapidly changing, and with the emergence of a new landscape comes new challenges. Traditional supply chains have been reshaped in an attempt to better adjust to the ever-increasing globalization process. This has increased the complexity of logistics as supply chains now are global, multi-tiered and encompass a variety of activities and stakeholders. As a result, many organizations are struggling to fully monitor their supply chains due to the lack of visibility within the supply chain. This concerns not only commercial corporations but also humanitarian organizations in their quest to improve the situation for people in need. The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of Supply Chain Visibility and determine which factors that affect the level of visibility in a supply chain, and to investigate how humanitarian organizations can increase the level of Supply Chain Visibility during the last mile of delivery. The research was conducted by means of an extensive literature review and a case study in Zimbabwe. The case study included a mapping of the national supply chain and an assessment of the current level of visibility. Subsequently, the underlying issues that affect the current level of visibility were identified and analysed. The findings from the study show that the underlying activity and the antecedent of Supply Chain Visibility is information sharing between trading partners in the supply chain. The activity of information sharing is in turn determined by the level of connectivity and willingness. Connectivity measures the maturity of the technological means that an organisation possesses for the use of information sharing and willingness is a measurement of an organization’s attitude toward the act of information sharing. The attribute of the shared information, in terms of quality and quantity, is what finally determines the level of visibilityin a supply chain. For humanitarian organizations to increase the level of visibility during the last mile of delivery, the findings show that organizations must improve the attributes of the shared information. As information collection is often directly tied to the physical distribution of commodities, organizations must improve their transportation operations in order to increase the level of quality of the shared information. In the long run it is imperative that humanitarian organizations detach the information flows from the physical flows so that information is transmitted electronically from health facilities to the central information repository, rather than being collected by vehicle. Implementing a Logistics Management Information System based on the GS1 standards is therefore a necessity as it would allow for automatic information capture and dissemination among supply chain stakeholders.