Key Challenges to Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Koppiahraj Karuppiah, Bathrinath Sankaranarayanan, Syed Mithun Ali and Sanjoy Kumar Paul
Additional contact information
Koppiahraj Karuppiah: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil, Tamil Nadu 626126, India
Bathrinath Sankaranarayanan: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil, Tamil Nadu 626126, India
Syed Mithun Ali: Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
Sanjoy Kumar Paul: UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-20

Abstract: COVID-19 has had a major impact on health, economic, social, and industrial activities. It has disrupted supply chain management and affected the movement of essential supplies to a large extent. This study aims to identify and evaluate the challenges hampering sustainable humanitarian supply chain management (SHSCM). Twenty critical challenges to SHSCM are identified using a comprehensive literature review, and three strategies were developed. The challenges and strategies were verified using expert input. The challenges were evaluated using the neutrosophic analytic hierarchical process (AHP) method. The neutrosophic TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive multicriteria decision making) method was then used to select the best strategy. The findings reveal that facility location problems, short lead times for emergency supplies, spread of rumors, rapid emergence of new clusters, and doubt concerning the available remedy are five critical challenges in SHSCM during COVID-19. Public–private partnerships are identified as the best strategy in SHSCM. Finally, this paper discusses the implications to sustainable development goals in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.

Keywords: COVID-19; neutrosophic AHP; TODIM; sustainable HSCM; public–private partnership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5850/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/5850/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:5850-:d:560307

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().