Applied theory. Earlier in this thesis we have described the humanitarian marketplace, comprised of organizations, with different purchasing strategy, warehouse strategy and needs. Their need depend highly on the needs of the beneficiaries, and the need of the beneficiaries depend on a catastrophe, and the art and scope of the catastrophe. Therefore the demand for products needed for the humanitarian operations are highly fluctuating this due to the high unpredictability of humanitarian catastrophes. The location, art and scope of the demand is uncertain until the catastrophe is a fact. When the catastrophe is a fact, the demand for products related to a sudden catastrophe is imminent. Day’s, hours even minutes counts. The right equipment where it is needed can save life, the result being a short lead time (D-time). For a slow onset catastrophe there might be more time available to prepare, depending on the catastrophe. But as stated earlier in this thesis, the humanitarian organizations have limited buying power, before funding is provided to them by donors, and limited leeway before they are invited by the government of the country affected. In some cases the humanitarian organizations are not invited, and cannot do anything to help. Therefore it can be difficult to know the scope, and actual demand before the crisis is a fact, and then an operation cannot start before the country has asked for help, and the funding is made available to the humanitarian organizations. The humanitarian organizations are often dependent on donor funding, before they can do any sourcing. Therefore some of them have no inventory, or the inventory is limited. Therefore they have to utilize Just-in-time purchasing, when the funding is available they purchase the products, meaning that the suppliers have to own the stock until the need is a fact. When funding and invitation is present, a humanitarian operation can start. Often has a huge amount of equipment to be sourced and moved into the affected area within a short time. From the supplier’s perspective, this means that they have no time to produce the products when the humanitarian organizations start sourcing for the operation and that if the product is not in inventory the sale is lost. Figure 7-9: Time line before a humanitarian operation starts The figure above shows the course of events in the initial phase of a humanitarian operation. For a sudden onset disaster neither the supplier nor the humanitarian organizations has the chance of...
