News
| 11.08.2015

Doctoral Thesis: Consolidation Can Optimise Resources in Humanitarian Logistics

MSc Alain Vaillancourt defends his doctoral thesis in Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility on Friday 14 August 2015 i Helsinki.

Major disasters, conflicts and poverty afflict millions of people around the world. To address the needs of these people, humanitarian organisations deploy a vast array of resources supported by material, financial and information flows. Humanitarian organisations need efficient logistics support in order for them to optimise the use of their resources. Through vertical or horizontal coordination, the organisations can improve the way to respond to a situation.

A specific approach to coordination is consolidation, a topic that is explores in depth in Alain Vaillancourt’s thesis on “Consolidation in Humanitarian Logistics”. Vaillancourt aims to understand the competences and underlying resources for consolidation of materials in supply chains.

  • Material consolidation by humanitarian organisations can improve the access to competencies in between organisations through specific activities and thus support them in fulfilling their mission, says Vaillancourt.

The thesis covers material consolidation concepts and humanitarian logistics activities such as warehousing consolidation, procurement consolidation and transportation consolidation. The findings highlight how humanitarian organisations facilitate access to competencies through specific consolidation activities. The findings give managers of humanitarian organisations insights on consolidation and how to organise the appropriate resources to build their internal competencies to improve performance across supply chains.

MSc Alain Vaillancourt defends his doctoral thesis in Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility: “Consolidation in Humanitarian Logistics” on Friday 14 August 2015.

Time: 14 August 2015, at 12
Place: Room 309, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Professor Ruth Banomyong, Thammasat University, Thailand
Custos: Erkko Professor in Humanitarian Logistics, Gyöngyi Kovacs

A copy of the thesis can be downloaded at: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/155629

 

For more information, please contact:

Alain Vaillancourt
alain.vaillancourt@hanken.fi