Characterising Unplanned Logistics Operations in Urgent Settings

Large-scale, unexpected events often create challenging operating environments with new and urgent logistics needs. This situation often gives rise to unplanned logistics networks, formed rapidly by connecting previously disconnected organisations in challenging operating conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, led to thousands of these networks emerging to provide medical equipment, serve vulnerable individuals, perform viral testing, and re-route supplies around closed borders. Despite their prevalence, little is known about the circumstances that give rise to these unplanned networks, their internal dynamics and evolution, and how they reconfigure their structures in response to uncertainty. Practical guidance for managing this unusual class of operations is severely lacking. To address this challenge, this thesis examines four fundamental issues in the management of these so-called ‘ad hoc logistics networks’. First, we build a theory to explain why unplanned activities emerge in certain contexts by identifying four features that are necessary for their existence. Second, we turn to their evolution over a life cycle, building a lifecycle model from 150 variables monitored over two years in two case study ad hoc logistics networks. These case studies concern ad hoc logistics networks in the healthcare sector and data from them in used throughout this thesis. The life cycle model includes a multi-stage transition from emergent formation to mature operations, characterised by an overlap between planning and operation. Third, we identify the properties of ad hoc logistics networks that enable them to respond to uncertain disturbances. This investigation, based on data from disturbance events in the case studies, identifies that the ad hoc and uncertain nature of these logistics networks may contribute positively to their operational agility, challenging existing theories of agility. Finally, we propose two tools to quantify and improve the structural properties of ad hoc logistics networks that enable them to reconfigure in response to requirements changes. We demonstrate these tools in example reconfigurations from the case studies. The contributions of this thesis resolve a tension in existing academic theories of logistics management and emergency response by drawing attention to the existence of unplanned operations, referred to here as ‘ad hoc logistics networks’. We further build new theory on the live development of processes, the agility, and the reconfiguration of ad hoc logistics networks.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Glew, Robert

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• McFarlane, Duncan

• Case Study
• Crisis Response
• Deep Uncertainty
• Emergency
• Life Cycle Model
• Logistics
• Operations Management
• Planning
• Reconfigurability
• Reconfiguration
• Supply Chain Management
• Uncertainty
• Volunteers

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/5ae50acf-8c47-43a8-9fdf-7d390199ef61/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.99630

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/353521