A literature review on inventory management in humanitarian supply chains

Abstract

In this paper, we present a review and analysis of studies that focus on humanitarian inventory planning and management. Specifically, we focus on papers which develop policies and models to determine how much to stock, where to stock, and when to stock throughout the humanitarian supply chain. We categorize papers according to the disaster management cycle addressed; specifically, we focus on pre-disaster and post-disaster inventory management. We evaluate existing literature in terms of problem aspects addressed such as decision makers, stakeholders, disaster types, commodities, facility types, performance measures as well as methodological aspects (i.e., types of policies, models, and solution approaches). We identify current gaps in the literature and propose directions for future research.