Emergency management logistics must become emergency supply chain management

Much has been written about how emergency management (EM) needs to look to the future regarding issues of resource management (monetary, human, and material). Constraints on budgets are ongoing and the staffing of emergency response activities is often difficult because volunteers have little to no training. The management of material resources has also been a challenge because 1) the categories of material vary by the type of emergency, 2) the necessary quantities of material are often not located near the ultimate point of need, and 3) the transportation assets are rarely available in the form and quantity required to allow timely and effective response. The logistics and resource management functions of EM (what we refer to as EM logistics) have been largely reactive, with little to no pre-event planning for potential demand. We applied the Supply Chain Operational Reference (SCOR) model to EM logistics in an effort to transform it to an integrated and scalable system of physical, information, and financial flows into which are woven the functions of sourcing, making, delivering, and returning, with an overarching planning function that transcends the organizational boundaries of participants. The result is emergency supply chain management, which embraces many more participants who share in a larger quantity of more useful information about the resources that need to be deployed when responding to and recovering from emergency events.