Access to supply chain and logistics best practices, innovative solutions, and technologies is imperative to enabling humanitarian organisations to tackle their operational bottlenecks and enhance their efficiencies in order to save lives and better alleviate suffering from disasters.

However, many organisations in Asia and the Pacific still have limited access to such logistical expertise and technological innovations, especially those located in less developed countries. Therefore, low productivity and poor operational performance are quite common in various humanitarian and development aid operations. Consequently, these inefficiencies may expose people on the ground to livelihood and health risks.

To help bridge these gaps, HELP Logistics has extended its partnership with The Thammasat Business School Humanitarian Logistics research team in Thailand (TBS HUMLOG), led by Professor Ruth Banomyong. The partnership, which was established in 2016, aims to leverage logistics and supply chain management expertise of the TBS team to enhance the humanitarian supply chain operations and build the internal capacities of our partner organisations.

In 2022, HELP Logistics and the TBS HUMLOG team have agreed to continue providing technical support, training, and consulting services to humanitarian organisation partners in the region. The focus of this collaboration will also expand to align with the rising humanitarian needs in the region, covering supply resilience, agriculture supply chain, and sustainability, to name a few focus areas.

Over the past few years, the impact of this partnership has been recognised by many humanitarian organisations to have helped increase their capacities and enhance their supply chain operations.

In the words of Ashis Kumar, Finance and Support Services Director at World Vision International (WVI) Laos:

"HELP Logistics and The Thammasat Business School team in Thailand have conducted various projects with WVI Laos, including localised market assessments, sourcing processes, and procurement performance assessments through the purchasing portfolio model.

The well-known Kraljic's Purchasing Portfolio Model (PPM) was used as the primary tool in the proposed framework to guide WVI Laos in analysing its procurement and commodity profiles. This project gave WWI Laos better visbility on their commodity management and classification.  With this better holistic view, the WVI Laos team is now able to identify and mitigate critical supply chain risks.”