Supply Chains That Save Lives
These small, unmanned aircraft have become useful for delivering medical supplies to hard-to-reach areas.
What are drones?
This hypothesis represents the “status quo” and is assumed true until evidence suggests otherwise
What the null hypothesis?
A diagram shaped like a fish skeleton used to identify potential causes of a problem.
What is fishbone or Ishikawa diagram?
Projects where resources are fixed but time is flexible
What are resource constrained projects?
In disaster zones this can be used to manufacture critical medical equipment (like prosthetics or parts for hospital machinery) on-site, reducing the need for complex supply chains.
What is 3D printing?
This type of error occurs when you incorrectly reject a true null hypothesis.
What is Type 1 error?
A graphical technique that shows the relationship between two variables to identify patterns or root causes.
What is scatter plot?
Allocating aid so that resources match community needs rather than demand or convenience is an example of this operational principle.
What is equitable distribution?
This term describes the final segment of delivering aid directly to affected individuals or households.
What is last mile delivery?
A forecasting method that smooths out short-term fluctuations by averaging a fixed number of the most recent data points.
What is the moving average method?
It is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement.
A humanitarian organization must allocate limited trucks and drivers to deliver food and medical supplies to multiple villages. They want to maximize the number of people reached while respecting vehicle capacities. This type of model helps make that decision.
What is optimization model?
Strategic placement of warehouses in disaster-prone regions ensures that essential supplies (like medical kits, water, and food) are available for rapid distribution.
What is inventory prepositioning?
A numerical value calculated from the sample data that is used to determine whether or not to reject the null hypothesis.
What is a test statistic?
This Six Sigma metric quantifies how often a process meets customer requirements, integrating defects and opportunities into a single measure.
What is sigma level?
This type of budget breaks down total project or operational costs by time periods, helping managers track spending against planned schedules.
What is time-phased budget?
This stage of disaster relief operations includes rebuilding damaged roads, bridges, and facilities and economic revitalization of affected population.
What is the recovery stage of disaster relief operations?
This type of regression is appropriate when the dependent variable represents a probability bounded between 0 and 1.
What is logistic regression?
In this advanced methodology, control charts, capability analysis, and hypothesis testing are integrated to drive data-driven decisions for process optimization.
What is Statistical Process Control?
To serve more people with limited resources, a charity analyzes which activities create the most impact and redesigns its processes to deliver aid faster and more reliably.
What is process improvement in humanitarian/non-profit operations?