Do we ever learn? How come we humans knowingly and willingly put ourselves and our critical infrastructure in harm’s way time and again? Instead of living with and adjusting to natural hazards, we turn them into natural disasters, by our own doings and short-sighted decisions.
On one hand, a disaster relief operation could be viewed as a supply chain operating under an extreme supply chain disruption. On the other hand, a disaster relief operation could also be viewed as a supply chain operating with extreme supply chain flexibility or extreme supply chain agility.
Disasters. The result: Damaged infrastructure. End result: Disrupted supply chains. But how do disasters really impact supply chains? Is it different upstream or downstream the supply chain?
The timely delivery of critical goods has always been a crucial element of an effective disaster response, but an effective disaster supply chain is hard to create and maintain. What are the key supply chain factors for improving disaster supply chain management?
Decentralization, pre-positioning and pooling of relief items are key success factors for dramatic improvements in humanitarian operations performance in disaster response and recovery.
Now there is a new source for knowledge on disaster management and humanitarian logistics, the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM).
If you are a supply chain or logistics academic or researcher, looking for a new research strand or looking for a new theoretical approach to preparedness and recovery, then yes, this is it.
The recent earthquake in Haiti is a poignant reminder of how vulnerable a country is when it is facing disaster on a grand scale.
The closure of SAAB is a major crisis by all standards, and is a fitting reminder that this 10-year old book will never go put of date. Why and how do some companies survive, and some not? This book sheds some light on this. Close calls and near misses are not unusual in the business world, but how do companies deal with them?
Do you regularly back up vital business information? Not? Well, maybe hard drive repair or hard drive recovery may save the day for you. DTIData is one of many specialists in hard drive recovery and hard drive repair.
Should we actually bother to spend time and money on disaster mitigation, or should we rather focus on preparing for disaster recovery? Is re-active better than pro-active? To what extent can we really reduce the dangers from future disasters? Does investing in prevention divert funds from rescue efforts when disasters do occur?
How many ways are there for defining vulnerability and criticality, really? Traditionally, risk matrixes have a likelihood/impact approach, but not always. Yesterday, I was examining a criticality/vulnerability matrix.
It is important to distinguish to between criticality and vulnerability when assessing the importance of the road and highway network. Collectively, these factors are an indication of the conditions, concerns, consequences, and capabilities that might cause an operating agency to label an asset “critical.”
The objective of the first project ‘Protection of Society’ (POS) or ‘Beskyttelse av Samfunnet’ (BAS, in Norwegian) was to describe how modern society will react to and can protect itself when facing modern warfare. In doing so, the report identified key components and functions that are essential to a modern society, and interdependencies between them.
New Zealand is probably not the fist country that comes to mind when thinking of state-of-the-art transportation lifeline engineering. Nonetheless, I think it is time to consider New Zealand as being one of the countries at the very forefront.
Michael Z Bell is a Business Continuity consultant, based in Ottawa, Canada, and his business website (and blog) presents current information and opinions on business continuity, disaster recovery, risk assessment, and business impact analysis.
Transportation recovery plans need to look beyond their mere purpose of addressing hazards in the transportation network. The transportation network is essential to many community. This implies that the restoration of the transportation network also means the restoration of the economy and the society, not just the infrastructure.
As our infrastructure and organisations become ever more networked and interdependent there is a growing need to focus on managing overall system risk. In particular, there is a need to focus not only on the vulnerability of our systems to failure, but also on our ability to manage and minimise the impact of any failures.
