Supply Chain Innovation Critical in Ebola Response

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the January-February 2015 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

January-February 2015

As long as there have been boats and beasts of burden, intrepid business professionals, governments, and marauders have sought fame, fortune, wealth, and value by going global. Think the Phoenicians, Marco Polo, and the Vikings in days of old. Or in contemporary times, think of China, BRIC, EMEA, and other emerging markets. One could argue that outsourcing to China a few decades ago gave birth to supply chain management as we think of it today. This month we’re including an online bonus column from APQC. While this issue focuses on global management, we didn’t want to miss out on the column.

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Walk through the recently built UNICEF warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, and you will pass a room where office cubicles have been replaced with rolling tables, white boards, colorful couches, and a mix of gadgets and gizmos. This is the home of the organization’s Innovation Unit.

The fact that the unit is embedded in the supply chain function underlines the emphasis that UNICEF puts on developing innovative processes and grounding new product ideas with operational realities; a culture normally associated with leading companies.

This culture is central to the fight against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. UNICEF is developing new ways to deliver the large volumes of supplies it ships, and is providing a critical conduit to support Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and Community Care Centers (CCCs). By October 8, 2014, more than 900 metric tons of supplies were delivered to the region in support of partners, through a total of 73 flights, according to UNICEF.

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